


Applied Mathematics

by palimpsestus



Series: Chaos [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Biotics, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Then Relationship, geeking out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:58:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6440284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palimpsestus/pseuds/palimpsestus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Kaidan, falling in love was like balancing an equation. But Shepard was an infinity, and could not be counted.</p><p>____<br/>A Kaidan-focussed exploration of the events of the Mass Effect trilogy. Part of the 'Chaos-verse' but can stand alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Specialist

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago I wrote a fic for the kink meme exploring Kaidan's geeky side, and in my plans for April 11th I found myself referencing the fic and its sequel, Sentinel, a lot. So I revisited it and I want to continue it, so here's the old fic and the new stuff will quickly follow. 
> 
> The original entry is: http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/4037.html?thread=10826181#t10826181

The shriek bounced off the high arched ceilings, "Oh my God, it's a _Savant_!"  
  
"Where? What?" Ashley's rifle leapt to life in her hands, springing to a more comfortable shape as she scanned the office suite in apprehension. Of the three soldiers, she was the only one who seemed alarmed.   
  
"Relax, Ash," Kaidan said. He turned from the console he'd been tapping at and approached the third figure crouched down beneath an upturned desk. "Where'd you find it?" he asked their Commander.

 

Ashley frowned, but holstered the fearsome rifle once more, watching the Commander with her dark eyes narrowed. She repositioned herself to watch the exits while the others continued in their unconnected observations. She found herself reaching for her pistol, running her gloved thumb over the grip.  
  
Emerging from the safe she'd been rummaging around in, Shepard gave them a dizzied grin. She held up a smooth, plastic, blue box that fit neatly into the palm of her hand. " _Look_ at it," she breathed. "Who just leaves this kind of thing lying around?"  
  
Kaidan suppressed the smile that came to him. It took a little getting used to, but he had to admit the kleptomaniac tendencies of the Alliance's best and brightest was somewhat . . . adorable.  
  
"I don't think having it in a safe counts as 'lying around'," Ashley spoke the retort that was playing on his mind. All the same, she stopped fingering her pistol and crossed her arms, leaning back against one of the desks. She frowned at the small package Shepard was turning over in her hands. "So what is it?"  
  
"An amp," Kaidan supplied, as Shepard still seemed lost in wonder. "A damned good one too. Asari made."  
  
Shepard looked up, eyes wide and mouth curved in a smile. It was infectious and he could feel himself grinning back. He'd never seen her so excited about something. She was always quick to pick up on what her crew wanted, tearing half way across the galaxy on a tip from Garrus or delaying departure for Tali's explorations. When Williams got gooey eyed over a new rifle, Shepard doubled back on the Citadel and paid out a small fortune for it. When he and Tali started arguing shield configurations, Shepard's face glazed over, disturbingly similar to the expression she used when listening to Udina, but still she listened to them and took their ideas on board. But now she was excited, practically bouncing on her toes as she brandished her find in her fist.  
  
Damn it, she did 'cute' too. Beauty, grace, fierceness . . . he'd seen all of those in abundance in their Commander. Cute was throwing him for a loop. It felt altogether too . . . human. Humans dated. Humans thought about colleagues like _that_.  
  
"I thought . . ." Ash hesitated, frowning at them both. "I thought they were in your skull?"  
  
Shepard clasped her hand around the box.  
  
"The implants are the parts that are interfaced with neural tissue," Kaidan told the younger woman, this explanation one he'd rolled out many times and it tripped off his tongue in a rehearsed cadence. "The amp is like a capacitor that can store and redistribute the eezo in the neural system, allowing for stronger fields, or faster recharges, dependent on the configuration of the dendrite-like connections in the interface."  
  
Ash nodded, but her gaze lingered on the pocket Shepard had secured the amp in. "So that's a good one? Would it stop you having migraines, LT?"  
  
Shepard's hand darted to the nape of her neck, where her dark hair concealed the wetware access spot. He suppressed the urge to tell her not to touch it. The Commander was probably a stronger biotic than he was, she'd certainly mastered more types of field. Doubtless she knew how to take care of her interface.  
  
Back at BAaT, some kids hadn't been able to keep their hands away from where the tissue fused with metal, scratched and scratched until the interface got hot and red and was marked 'infected' on the kid's file. Some biotics had scarring there too. Like him, Shepard kept her hair long, long enough to cover any evidence of that peculiarity.  
  
"No," he told Ash. This answer was not so rehearsed. "The implants I have are . . . larger, more invasive. They connect to more nodes in my neural tissue and that's partly what causes the migraines. The amp sits outside of implant, so can't affect the implants functioning."  
  
"It probably wouldn't hurt though," Shepard said softly. "I mean, more controlled distribution of power, that's gotta help with the migraines."  
  
He shook his head firmly. "No, Shepard, I don't think it would help. Besides, I'm doing pretty well with this Polaris, it doesn't exhaust me half as much as the old Unity." He tapped the back of his skull with a glove, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Neither the Commander nor Ashley looked remotely reassured.  
  
"So you put it in your brain?" Ash continued, oblivious to whatever was racing through Shepard's mind at the moment. The Commander lost her enthusiasm and brought up her pistol once more.  
  
"Yeah, we do," she said. "Come on, let's find this damned mercenary."  
  
"Yes, ma'am," Ash said quickly, falling in to line. The marine glanced at Kaidan, mouthing 'oops' at him. He shook his head, and returned with 'don't worry', walking drag as they moved out.

 

***

 

The amp, still in its box, remained on her desk. Since returning to the _Normandy_ she'd cleaned her kit, requisitioned a new shotgun for Wrex, had a long, _long_ shower that did nothing to work the kinks out of her system, and filed a mission report for Hackett.  
  
The amp still sat on her desk. Safely nestled in its protective shell.   
  
If Serrice Council realised she had it they'd probably try and buy it back from her. They were notoriously possessive of their tech. She could probably get even more from the black market. Fighting Saren and the geth was not a cheap exercise. The Alliance couldn't afford to keep her crew supplied with the kind of weaponry and armour they coveted.  
  
But that amp . . . As a teenager, hurting, alone, she had poured heart, soul, body and mind into her manifesting talents. Her mastery of half a dozen fields was not born out of love of physics, or natural ability, but the produce of one frightened girl who had suddenly been given the gift of never being weaponless again.  
  
She paced the floor of her cabin. A few years earlier and she would have been given L2 implants. Who knew how strong she would have been? Or would she have been a vegetable? Kaidan's raw power did give her pause for thought, but she'd also seen him curled up in a darkened medbay, with Chakwas walking on eggshells.  
  
If that amp would help . . .

 

. . . The choice had been made really, and a weight lifted from her chest as she realised it. Yes, the money would have been nice, but this was _Kaidan_. He needed this amp. And not just because his biotics would improve. If it would help him, it was worth it.  
  
He was working at the station outside of her quarters, chewing on a thumbnail as he contemplated the power output of the grid. He glanced up when she rounded the corner, aware of her presence again. She tried not to double guess herself about that. With everything going on, she needed to be confident in at least one of her instincts. He liked her. He had to like her.

 

Please let him like her. She opened her mouth to speak and found her throat inexplicably tight. After a cough, she managed, "Kaidan, can I see you for a moment?"  
  
Kaidan nodded, following her into the captain's cabin. "Something on your mind, Commander?" he asked as the doors closed behind him.   
  
"We're off the clock," she said, heading to the desk. Her fingers closed around the plastic box. "It's Shepard."  
  
"Uh . . ." Kaidan's gaze was pulled to the amp in her hand. "Sorry, you're not wearing that?" he asked, pointing to it. "I'd have got that installed the moment I'd decontaminated out the airlock." He caught himself and checked his enthusiasm, wincing. "Uh, ma'am, I mean, uh, Shepard."  
  
She chuckled and took a step toward him. "Kaidan, relax." Holding the amp between them, she cracked the seal on the box, revealing a slender silver chip, about a pinkie's length long and half as wide. The engraving on the side was ornate, a complex pattern that hinted at the circuitry beneath. Kaidan stared at it, and she watched his eyes, finding flecks of gold in the dark irises. "I want you to have it," she murmured, aware that her voice had dropped a few octaves, making it sound like much more than just an amp.  
  
"Shepard, I . . ." he held his hands up, one closing around her wrist, strong and steady. "I can't take that."  
  
"No, listen, I've thought very carefully about this and yes, it's valuable, but the benefit to the squad of having you at your best is greater than the financial benefit of selling it-" she was rambling, oh lord, like that flustered teenager she used to be.  
  
Kaidan was shaking his head again. " _Sell_ it?" he repeated. "No, you should _use_ it! I've seen your biotics in action, they're nothing short of incredible."  
  
"But I'm an L3," she protested, regarding the amp they were now somehow holding between them. "If you had something like this, Kaidan, hell you'd be unstoppable out there." She watched his fingers curl tighter around hers, felt a hard callus scraping across a soft patch on the back of her knuckles.  
  
"That amp won't stop the migraines, Shepard. There's no pattern behind them, there's nothing that this amp can do for me."  
  
"It'll make your powers stronger, faster," she broke in.

 

For a moment, she felt sure he was going to touch her cheek, but as soon as she thought she saw the impulse cross his mind, he had reined it back. "And it will do the same for you. With the kind of risks you take, you should have it. Humanity's Spectre should have the best."  
  
Her heart was racing, her biotics beginning to crackle in anticipation. Kaidan smiled down at her and she had to lick her lips, suddenly parched. She had to look back down at the amp, anything to keep herself from fixating on his lips. "It just seems a little, I don't know, selfish?"  
  
"Well, next time you pull our asses out of the fire with one of those singularities, you can tell me you think it's selfish." Now it was his voice that was pitched low and soft.  
  
The amp glittered in the overhead lights. She pressed it into his hands. "Okay," she said, her voice coming out in a whisper. "Kaidan . . . would you?" She ran her hand through her hair, feeling the rigid line of her implant's join under the occipital bone.  
  
She could see the hesitation in him, even though he tried to hide it by contemplating the amp once more, turning it over in his fingers. She willed him not to suggest Chakwas, not to deny his med skills, or hide behind regs, or any of the hundred ways he could escape the situation.

 

And if he did duck out, could she blame him?  
  
Kaidan nodded. "I'll just . . . wash my hands," he said, stepping past her to set the amp on the desk, his shoulder brushing hers as he did.

 

***

 

This was the definition of letting things get out of hand. He inspected his fingernails under the stream of water, the anti-microbial soap visibly working to remove the last specks of dirt from his hands. From the corner of his eye he could see Shepard unwind her hair from it's bun, removing an array of grips and elastic and setting each one on the desk. Her hair was longer than he'd expected, tumbling half way down her back and she ran her fingers through the waves, shaking them out. He was taking far too long with the disinfectant, but it would have taken a squadron of geth, maybe even a colossus to divert his attention.  
  
She slid her fingers through the hair at the back of her head, dividing it neatly to reveal the line of grey metal in her scalp. The back of his head itched at the sight. She tied up the bulk of her hair atop her head, smoothing down the section that started under the implant's slot, and she sat down at her chair.

 

It was nothing he hadn't seen a dozen or more times.

 

Just like he had seen at least a dozen lovers.

 

Yep.   
  
"Okay," he said softly, approaching her slowly. "You're not ticklish, are you?"  
  
"A little," she admitted. He could see her shoulders bunching under the navy shirt.  
  
"Well," he set his hands on her shoulder, feeling her muscles jumping under his palms. "Relax, it'll be easier," he said, digging his fingers into her shoulders and chasing the tense muscles with the heels of his hands.  
  
"They teach you this in BAaT?" she murmured, letting her head drop, although her shoulders didn't entirely lower.  
  
"Hmm, not really," he said, his fingers scraping over the strap of her bra, buried under the fabric of her shirt. She shivered when he did so, and he shifted his attention to a knot at her neck, working at it industriously.  
  
"So . . . where?"  
  
"I knew an asari on Elysium. She had a few biotic tricks." Was it his imagination, or did she tense ever so slightly at that? At what point was he reading too much into the line of her shoulders? "Sorry," he said automatically as his fingers probed a line of stiff tissue under her right shoulder. "Is this an injury?"  
  
"Yeah," she said softly. "PT never quite got it working right. You're not hurting me, don't worry."  
  
"Okay," he said, somehow feeling like he'd pried too far. "The asari taught me that amps go in easier if you're relaxed."  
  
"Huh. If there wasn't a rogue Spectre and a fleet of geth out there somewhere, I'd be really relaxed right now, I promise," she said.  
  
He found himself wondering just how relaxed the Commander could get, if that might extend to long lazy Sundays in bed, or drinks on the beach. Not for the first time, he wondered what would have been different if Anderson was still the Captain and they weren't chasing Saren. All the same, her shoulders were now soft and giving under his hands. "Okay, I'm going to remove the amp," he said, noticing that she tensed as he said it. "Do you want a count down?"  
  
"No," she said, but she sounded uncertain.  
  
He decided to take that face value, running his fingers over the join of metal and skin on the back of her skull. It wasn't as simple as popping an omnitool card from a subdermal hand-mounted implant. These amps couldn't be removed without the use of two hands and they were damned tricky to do by yourself. He heard her hiss as the amp disconnected, and he wondered if she felt the same thing he did when an amp was removed. "It's like ice, I think," he said, removing the Prodigy amp she'd been using and setting it down on the desk.  
  
"Yeah," her voice shook a little. "Like somebody drops a bucket of ice down your back."  
  
Shepard and ice cubes conjured an image in his mind's eye that was going to keep him awake at night. He shook it away and lifted the Savant, removing a pre-sealed wipe from the box and wiping it and Shepard's implant-join down thoroughly.  
  
"Maybe . . . warn me," she began, her fists clenching atop the desk.

 

He nodded, aligning the amp with her implant. "Okay," he promised. "We're at stage one, ' _the anterior face of the amp meets the service grooves_ '," he quoted from memory. "Take a deep breath, and let it go," he added, noticing that she did so without hesitation. She trusted her crew, she trusted him . . . it was a little sobering. "Stage two, ' _the amp is guided towards the intake_ '." The silver strip escaped his fingers then, the implant taking over and drawing it in and safe. "Stage three, ' _the amp is induced to the interior implant_ '."  
  
She gasped, throwing her head back and a purple blue corona flaring around her head like a halo of flame. Her eyes closed in an echo of ecstasy, her lips parted as she sucked in her breath.  
  
He ached to lean down and close his mouth around hers, to touch her and make her cry out again, maybe even give her a name to shout. His name. Instead, he turned to the old amp, giving it a cursory wipe down and setting it in the Savant's box. "How's it feel, Shepard?" he asked.  
  
She hopped to her feet, her hands flicking into a well known motion that brought one of her pillows flying towards them. She laughed as he ducked the projectile. "Oh . . . this feels _amazing_ ," she breathed, slamming the pillow against the deck with another twitch of her fingers.  
  
He laughed. He had to, her enthusiasm was catching. "I'm looking forward to seeing it in action."  
  
She grinned, approaching him slowly. "Thank you," she said, reaching up to trace her fingers along the line of the implant. "I don't really like doing it alone."  
  
"Any time you don't fancy doing it alone," he said, before he could stop himself.  
  
Her eyes widened, and she rocked back on her heels, folding her arms. "I'll bear that in mind, Lieutenant," she drawled, and he was sure she intended every ounce of the sexy purr she injected into her tone.  
  
"I'll take this to Chakwas to disinfect," he said, raising the spare amp. "Can't wait to see you in action," he added, and a moment later wondered why his normal filters weren't in place.  
  
She grinned, a hint of a blush forming on her cheeks. "Well I'd better go see what Hackett has for us then," she said, gathering up her hair and tying it back in the top knot he was used to seeing. "And Kaidan?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Genuinely. Thank you."  
  
He waited at the door for her to join him, smiling down at her. "And genuinely, any time," he told her. "And, uh, maybe you can repay the favour one day."  
  
She beamed. "Any time."

 


	2. Derivatives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The derivative of a function reflects the sensitivity of a dependent variable to change, as determined by the independent.   
> _______________  
> The crew of the Normandy share a breakfast in between systems.

Breakfast, a combination of rehydrated scrambled eggs that were a peculiar shade of grey and hard to chew bacon that was coloured a too-vibrant pink, wasn't quite the pick me up Kaidan had been hoping for.

 

He'd spent his evening reading up on Feros and ExoGeni and when he'd finally taken himself to his bunk he'd had formless, disquieting dreams that had left him groggy and standing in the shower for far too long after he'd woken.

 

Ashley, looking fresh faced and her uniform ship-shape, emerged from the head and was all but bouncing over to the supply store. She dumped a packet of granola into a bowl and joined him at the mess, picking the seat opposite. He pushed the coffee pot and creamer towards her, while she dug a teaspoon into the sugarbowl and started piling sweetener into her mug. “You look rough,” she announced, and with her other hands shovelled a spoonful of granola into her mouth.

 

Kaidan had to chuckle. “Yeah. Didn't sleep well.”

 

“Ugh, tell me about it,” she rolled her eyes while simultaneously pouring creamer into the mug. With her sweet and creamy coffee now exactly to her liking she sat back in her chair and cradled the mug to her heart. “I swear there's something off with these pods, right?” She laughed as his eyes widened. “Right? Come on, it can't just be me!”

 

“I don't know what it is but . . .”

 

“Maybe they're not insulated right,” Ashley continued, digging her spoon back into the granola bowl. “Ugh. Hey, how can you eat that rehydrated crap this early in the morning?”

 

“It's all about the protein,” he said, studiously piling another heap of grey eggs onto his fork.

 

“That's right,” she said slowly, chewing on her own breakfast. She stared at his plate and puffed out her cheeks as she seemed to try to think of something else to say.

 

Kaidan felt himself grinning. He cleared the rubbery taste from his mouth with a sip of coffee. “You haven't served with a lot of biotics, have you?”

 

“Some,” she snapped.

 

“It wasn't meant as a criticism, Chief,” Kaidan said gently. He focussed on his food but could make out the Chief's expression from the limits of his vision. She was scowling fierce enough to make even someone like Wrex pause, but she clutched her coffee mug to her like a child clutched its doll.

 

“It wasn't meant as one, sure.” When emotion took hold of her she spoke quick and staccato-like. Fearless too. That's why her mouth got her into so much trouble, he thought. “But what it is is a comment on how light my jacket is, on how inexperienced I am in comparison to every member of this handpicked crew, how I'm the one who doesn't understand what it's like working with aliens, how I'm the kid who never saw the Citadel before last month. But no. Sure. It wasn't meant as a criticism, LT.”

 

All Kaidan could do was grimace in sympathy and continue to eat. What could he say? She wasn't all wrong, really. She wouldn't have been his pick for Jenkin's replacement either. Though he couldn't fault what he'd seen her do out in the field. But from the strength of her file alone?

 

She'd been barely holding herself together when the _Normandy_ picked them up on Eden Prime, Shepard's suit immobilised with every first aid protocol he could think of. Though he'd been far from steady himself. The sickening feeling of thinking the Hero of Elysium had died on his watch returned, this time with the knowledge that Shepard was now more to him than a rousing story for the troops. She was a living, breathing, occasionally caustic . . . friend.

 

“You know,” he said, finding himself watching the door to her cabin. “I don't think Shepard had ever been on the Citadel before a month ago either.” And his attention was rewarded by the swish of the doors and Shepard's emergence.

 

“Yeah, well, she really is a colony kid, huh?”

 

Kaidan widened his eyes at her until she looked over her shoulder. He thought he could see the thoughts flitting through Ash's mind, her hope that Shepard hadn't heard any of the conversation, how unfair it was that Shepard walked out of her quarters with her hair in a sloppy bun and her uniform crinkled while Ash's was neat as a pin. How unfair that Shepard was given the opportunities Ash had never had. How unfair it was that Shepard didn't have the respect for the Alliance's rules and regulations that Ash honoured with every fibre of her being.

 

Ash sat a little straighter and started again on her breakfast.

 

“Hey,” Shepard said easily, taking a seat on Kaidan's side of the table, one along from him. Not quite the seat at the head of the table, but nearest to it. She reached for the coffee pot and a new mug and poured hers black. Then she planted her boots on the edge of the seat between them and stifled a huge yawn. “What's the scuttlebutt this morning then?” she managed when her yawn was done.

 

Ash finished her granola with a rattle of her spoon. “Nothing much.”

 

“Complaining about those pods,” Kaidan nodded to the aft of the crew deck, but watched the way Shepard's nose wrinkled, freckles dancing in concert to her disgust.

 

“Ugh,” she muttered. “Never could stand those things. You know I had such strange dreams last night.” She reached up to shove hair back from her forehead, pinching at the bridge of her nose as she did so. She nodded to the next awakening crewmember, their newest addition, the asari archaeologist, as she approached.

 

The asari came to a stop on the balls of her feet just a pace or so away from the table. “May I join you? Or is this a human ritual?”

 

“No ritual,” Ashley, said, raising an eyebrow at Kaidan. But she pushed the chair beside her out and gestured for Liara to sit. “Unless you count the hallowed tradition of dream sharing,” she added, just a hint of mischief in her voice.

 

“Oh, is that a tradition?” Liara asked quickly.

 

“Just making fun,” Ash assured her. “Coffee?”

 

“No, thank you.” Liara sat and clasped her gloved hands on the table. “What were the dreams?”

 

“Oh . . .” Shepard sighed airily, but her brows didn't quite unfurrow. “Just strange.”

 

“The LT had bad dreams too,” Ashley piped up, and Kaidan wished he could kick her under the table, like he might have done with his brother. But Shepard had heard and had now turned her attention on him, her lips curling up at one side.

 

“Do tell, LT,” she drawled.

 

Swearing he'd get Ash back for this later, Kaidan turned his attention on the asari. “It started off in a classroom. I was taking my final anatomy exam and when I looked down . . .” he caught Shepard giggling out of the corner of his eye and fixed his expression into the most serious one he could muster. The asari was listening intently, so he may have milked it just a little, “I was buck naked.”

 

Both Shepard and Ashley were cracking up now, and Liara rolled her eyes, “You're teasing me,” she accused, but with good humour.

 

Anything to get the Chief and the Commander on the same side, Kaidan thought, but he said, “Sorry, Liara. Ribbing the newcomers really is a human tradition.”

 

“Do asari have that dream?” Ash questioned.

 

“Oh yes! I think every species does. It may be a universal experience.” Liara chuckled half to herself. “There's a very specific variant for asari though, arriving at a formal event without your gloves. I've had that dream several times since arriving on the _Normandy_.”

 

Shepard drained her cup and glanced over at the food stores with a resigned expression. She was not a morning person, he'd learned, and she was too much a colony girl to live happily on a ship. He could see her rallying her own courage before she got up to fetch her own breakfast, less eggs and more bacon, and when she brought it back to the table he found himself pouring her another coffee in sympathy.

 

“The Normandy is a fast ship,” Liara observed. “Are we far from Feros?”

 

“Just another day,” Kaidan said.

 

“There are some very interesting artefacts from that system,” Liara continued, leaning on her elbows as if to get a little closer to Shepard, “I've often - ”

 

“Uh, uh,” Shepard said, holding up a hand. “No shop talk at the breakfast table, Momma's rules.”

 

“Ah,” Liara sat back and the table fell into silence while Ashley fixed herself her second coffee and Kaidan and Shepard worked on their breakfasts.

 

After a few more unappetising mouthfuls, Kaidan saw Ashley lean in toward Liara. “How are you sleeping then?” she asked.

 

“Not brilliantly,” Liara admitted. This reignited the discussion on the calibration of the sleeping pods and Kaidan found himself working his way through the remainder of his breakfast, listening to the chatter with half an ear. He kept waiting for Shepard to interject, thought he heard a few pauses where she might have jumped in with a quip, but she stayed quiet too, until Ashley and Liara were talking about recurring dreams and crazy dreams and laughing with each other about the strangest dreams they'd ever had.

 

Kaidan risked a glance at Shepard and saw her watching the pair with a slight smile. When she noticed him looking she raised her mug just a little. He lingered with the remains of his breakfast until she was finished and taking her tray to the receptacle. He followed closely behind, the sounds of Ash, Liara and the newly arrived Helen Lowe bonding over bad sleep ringing in his ears.

 

“So was that really Momma Shepard's rule?” he asked, and found himself reaching around her to pop his own tray back.

 

Shepard grinned at him, a light in her eyes dancing as she sipped her coffee again.

 

He folded his arms and glanced over his shoulder at the crew. “You're good at this,” he said, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.

 

She shrugged one shoulder and then regarded her coffee ruefully. “So I'm guessing you spent most of last night reading up on the Prothean ruins on Feros too, huh?”

 

He grinned. “Am I that obvious?”

 

“Come tell me what you learned,” she nodded to the stairs. “Maybe there's something you picked up that I didn't.””

 

Kaidan trailed the Commander out of the mess, leaving the amused crew behind, thinking that there was very little Shepard didn't pick up.

 


	3. Fundamental Frequency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present.  
> _____________
> 
> On their return from Feros, the crew of the Normandy take a break.

 

What Kaidan wanted was to stand under the showerhead until his skin was boiled raw. He wanted Feros, its colonists and the Thorian's creatures to be burned away, to be removed from memory and flesh.

 

But there was a limit to water and time, so he scrubbed and dried and left, counting the inhales and exhales it took to steady his heartbeat as he faced the crew once more. Those who hadn't been on the planet were trying their best to make themselves scarce, he thought, finding projects on the engineering deck or at comms.

 

Shepard was sitting at the mess, a taking a seat at the middle of the table's broadside. She was sitting with her legs crossed beneath her on the chair, her fingertips shaking as she manipulated the silver wrapping of an Eezo stamped ration. To her left the giant krogan sat, hulking forwards and looking almost comical as he reached out with great gentleness to open the ration for her. On her right, the turian, looking half asleep as he sat back in his chair. Tali and Liara were sitting to Garrus' right, heads bowed in quiet conversation. Ash had chosen to sit near Wrex, although she'd left a space between them, and she was watching the krogan's hands on Shepard's food with narrowed eyes.

 

It looked to Kaidan like a poor recreation of Da Vinci's last supper. The thought sent an uncomfortable shiver down his spine. He wanted to say something, to tell them how ridiculous they looked, but he couldn't. Just as when Shepard had told he and Tali to stay with the ExoGeni scientists in those old Prothean structures he'd kept his teeth gritted shut and nodded, watching her head further into danger with Garrus and Wrex by her side.

 

Their mission was going too fast, they were too desperate to find Saren, and he was caring too much about the mythical Commander Shepard who saved entire colonies single handedly . . . and bit her lip when she was puzzling out a battlefield or just trying to decipher a bill of sale from a vendor.

 

 _Thousands, millions, of women – and men! - bit their lip when they're thinking about something,_ _Alenko_ , he told himself fiercely.

 

 _And thousands, millions of men and women have long, curling hair and thick, dark eyelashes, and brilliant blue eyes and a pealing laugh like a bell_ , he told himself in return. _And yet when you find yourself waking up with their names on your lips you can say the similarity means nothing_.

 

As if she could hear his thoughts, Shepard glanced up at him and gave him one of her big, bright smiles, the crinkling at the corners of her eyes chasing the tiredness from her face. “Kaidan,” she said, and it sounded like relief in her voice. “Come join us. While we all fall asleep here.”

 

There was not a thought of resistance in his mind as he took the seat opposite her. Ash, claiming the unbalanced sides of the table made her feel awkward, broke Da Vinci's tableau by joining him.

 

“Quite a mission, huh?” he asked, reaching for one of the pre-wrapped ration packets too.

 

“Like nothing _I've_ ever seen before,” Ash mumbled.

 

Wrex grunted, loudly, in what Kaidan assumed was a laugh. He twisted his big head unnaturally to look at Ash with one beady eye. “Live a little longer, kid, and it won't be the craziest thing you've ever seen.”

 

The conversation played itself out in front of Kaidan as if in a vision. He knew Ash would bristle, would be on the back foot at the assumption of her innocence and youth, and something about aliens would be said and Shepard would come down on it hard and Ash would be hurt and Shepard frustrated and Kaidan was all too tired for the affair.

 

Perhaps seeing the same future as Kaidan, Wrex quickly turned his gaze to Shepard. “You're asari commando trained,” he said bluntly, which made both Shepard and Liara sit a little straighter.

 

“Impossible,” Liara countered. “Asari commandos are notoriously secretive.”

 

Kaidan studied his commander, the suppressed grin that tugged at her lips, the slightly lowered gaze he'd come to associate with danger, and Shepard stared right back at him while the others watched Liara. He could swear that she was whispering 'watch this' with that self satisfied smirk of hers.

 

“I know that,” Wrex shrugged affably, “but I also know singularity pop trick you use,” he said to Shepard, “and I know _that_ has asari blue all over it.”

 

Shepard reached forward to crumble a corner of ration into her palm and then popped it in her mouth, chewing as she made a show of thinking about Wrex's comment. After she swallowed she turned on the poster-girl smile, the one she saved for the Council and the Alliance, and said, “No comment.”

 

He laughed with the others, even Wrex and Liara joining in. “Oh I bet they just ate you up,” Wrex mused with a low, throaty chuckle to the end of his words.

 

Was it Kaidan's imagination, or was there the rosy hint of a blush upon the fair Commander's cheeks? The next time they had access to beer and a safe port, he'd be asking more about that.

 

“Oh yeah?” she retorted, “Just how many asari commandos have you known, Wrex? You seem very knowledgeable about them.”

 

The old krogan laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, there might a few blue Wrex-pups running about out there,” he said, with enough bluster and bravado to bely the lie. He seemed to catch Kaidan looking at him. “What about you, Kaidan? I've heard the asari like to test the strength of human biotics.”

 

“Well in the words of our great commander . . .” and Shepard chimed in with “No comment.”

 

The silence that followed was like a warm, soft blanket thrown over them, a signal that all was safe and they had nothing to fear from animated plants and the stench of rotting vegetables.

 

“We don't make many movies on the Flotilla,” Tali began, the modulation of her suit trilling the vowels in her words, “but one came out when I was a girl, shot entirely on a ship we were dismantling at the time, called _The Corillia_. It was about a crew who found an old Prothean artefact that released a biological contaminant into their suits. The infected stalked down every member of the crew until only one remained, and he had to blow the ship to save the Fleet.” Tali shook her head. “I couldn't sleep for a week after I saw it!”

 

“Yeah, I used to love zombie movies,” Ash shuddered. “After today not so much.”

 

“I can't believe you went down into that plant,” Tali shook her head at Garrus.

 

“Hey, not by choice, I was dragged in by our fearless leader,” Garrus pointed to Shepard who mouthed 'who me?' at him.

 

“We should have a movie night,” Kaidan heard himself volunteering, “I was always a fan of _Fleet and Flotilla_.”

 

“Can it be the musical?” Shepard asked. “ _Shipbound_ is one of my favourite songs of all time.”

 

While Kaidan wracked his memory for the musical adaption, Tali wailed like a grieving widow, dissolving into giggles, “Oh no, Shepard, please tell me you don't like the musical?”

 

“I must have listened to that adaption a thousand times,” Shepard reflected, tugging her hand through her thick forelock.

 

“I'm so disappointed” Tali was shaking her head and clutching at her breast. A mere forty eight hours ago Kaidan would have been surprised by her dramatics, but having spent much of their time together on Feros surrounded by tense ExoGeni workers, listening to colonists batter against the bulkheads, he'd come to recognise the quarian's relentless energy as its own kind of weapon, one against little black rainclouds. Which reminded him he wanted to see those shield harmonics of hers. How she managed all that on the old Bluewire she had.

 

He knew if he mentioned it to Shepard, Shepard would find some excuse or just make a plain gift of a new top-of-the-line model to Tali. He wasn't exactly sure the source of her wealth. The last time he'd asked if she could afford the pricey rifle she was purchasing for Ash she'd said something offhand about making some good mining investments in her youth. But the way she spent her chits made him think it wasn't money she was proud of.

 

Should he say it to Shepard? For all her talents she wasn't one for model numbers and gadgets, and she wouldn't know the difference between a Bluewire or a Logic Arrest. Did that mean it was his responsibility to point out how Tali could become a more effective fighter?

 

“You know,” Garrus interrupted his train of thought, “I took one of my friends to see that. It got good reviews. I didn't understand why she seemed so annoyed with me afterwards. Turns out she thought it was a date.”

 

“Oh, Garrus.” In sympathy, Tali placed her hand on his shoulder.

 

The evening, or whatever it was, drew to a close not long after the food was finished. Kaidan lingered a while longer at the table while the others found their bunks, and he was rewarded for the effort by Shepard saying she needed more food. He busied himself with his omnitool while she fetched herself a mug of hot, spiced asari tea and a bar of chocolate. When she returned, she took Ash's vacated seat beside him and sat facing him, arranging her snacks in front of her.

 

Kaidan read aloud from his omnitool, “ _Shipbound_ summarises the first act conflicts of the musical adaption of _Fleet and Flotilla_ , sung by Shalei's mother, Erzla, a character greatly expanded upon on the musical version.” From the corner of his gaze he could see Shepard grinning. He continued, “The song details the sacrifices Erzla has made for the Flotilla and her belief that one day it will be repaid by coming home to Rannoch.” He snapped the omnitool closed and leaned a little closer, “Should I be reading into this, Shepard?” he teased.

 

She licked her top lip and glanced around the quiet mess before quickly leaning in close and singing in a low, breathy voice meant for his ears alone, “ _Cos' all that I am / Is all that I've done / And all that we are / Is all we've become / And I will be shipbound / 'Till my daughter's on the ground / At least though I'm shipbound / My wings are starbound._ ”

 

She had to curtail the G sharp at the end, dropping an octave into one that could be hummed low in her chest. Kaidan realised he'd been leaning ever closer to hear her, and now that she'd finished the crescendo she was grinning at him.

 

“Uh,” he tried to speak and found his voice stubbornly unwilling. He cleared his throat while Shepard broke the chocolate apart and slid a square towards him over the table. “Speaking of Flotilla sacrifices, have you seen the omnitool Tali runs with?”

 

Shepard pouted her lips and shook her head. “Should I have?”

 

“She does a lot with not much,” he said.

 

Shepard was nodding now. “See if you can feel out what she'd like and put an order in with the quartermaster.”

 

“Sure.” He pinched the chocolate between his fingertips. “I, uh, wasn't sure if I should say. I'm not really sure on your rules yet.”

 

“I'll tell you when you step out of line,” was Shepard's quick response. She suppressed a yawn behind her mouth. “I don't think we can keep going at this pace. The crew needs shore leave.”

 

He nodded, still turning the chocolate over. It was going to start melting against his fingers.

 

Maybe that was why he was doing it.

 

“We’ve played it pretty close to the book so far . . . But we’re a long way from backup. We’ve got some tough calls to make.” He could see Shepard was studying him intently over the top of her mug of tea and he shrugged, eating the chocolate to give himself time to think. He might have hoped she'd say something to fill the silence as he chewed if he hadn't gotten to know her a little better. “I’m just saying try to leave yourself a way out. I’ve seen what cutting corners can do to someone. And I’d hate to have that happen to you, Shepard. Commander.” He licked the sticky traces of cocoa from his thumb and concentrated on the wall in front of him.

 

“Shepard?” She set her mug down. “That’s not the appropriate way to address your commanding officer, Lieutenant.”

 

He grimaced and glanced over his shoulder to be sure they were still sitting in relative privacy. “I wasn't speaking to you as my commanding officer, ma'am. I don't want to send any bad signals. Just working on what I picked up. You tell me if I'm going too far.”

 

Shepard was studying him with her politico expression, but was that a hint of a smile behind her eyes? He let himself study her right back, take time to fully take in every line of her face, her delicate scar and dangerous mouth. He was not taking this further than she was, of that he was sure. “I’m not questioning any decision you’ve made, Shepard. Let me be clear about that. It’s just my experience that once someone lets something slide, it tends to pick up speed. You get my meaning?”

 

She smiled when he'd finished and settled herself in her chair as though she was preparing to hear a long story. She lifted her mug and held it in her lap. “Talk to me, Kaidan. You’ve got a little black raincloud sitting over your head.”

 

So he did . . .

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must confess that 'Shipbound' took a lot of inspiration from Hamilton's '[Wait For It](https://youtu.be/6HKewzORvFo)'. What can I say?
> 
> Come and tumbl with me at [palim-writes](http://palim-writes.tumblr.com/)


	4. Axiom Schema

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Any terms of the system, which may or may not be required to satisfy certain conditions.   
> _______________  
> There are certain conditions under which Shepard may break.

It didn't seem fair that the first time he saw her outside of a uniform or a set of armour they were on a world straight out of a simul-stim, full of intrigue and danger, with snow whirling against the windows and a tall glass of something sparkling in her hand.

 

Despite himself he felt a wave of gratitude for the vanity that had stopped him from leaving the ship in his uniform. Despite its air conditioned hotels and bars, Noveria was still a cold planet, so he'd been limited in his choices. A plain grey shirt and the only civvie coat he'd brought with him on the Normandy. Better than nothing.

 

Shepard though, she'd gone asari styled, a long dress with gloves, the fabric cut away over the rounds of her shoulders. The concession to her humanity was her hair, falling in waves that caught the light like fire. The whole ensemble was extremely modest by asari standards, and a soft butter-yellow in colour that seemed very out of place amongst the vibrant Citadel-fashion colours that flocked around her. It was at once asari, human and undoubtedly not of Noveria, and he began to wonder if all of these choices were deliberate. Perhaps the dress was even this morning's purchase. Would she have brought such an item in her small duffel bag onto the Normandy?

 

She was drawing the attention of everyone in the room, just by standing there drinking her wine. If he went over he'd be drawing the attention too, he'd be the one standing in the reflection of her spotlight.

 

He approached slowly, a little reluctant to enter this new arena, but when he reached her table she laid a hand on his upper arm, said his name warmly, and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Mark – three o'clock,” her lips brushed against his ear.

 

This was a game he could play. He returned the affectionate ruse by placing his hand on the small of her back and kissing her cheek, covering her from the mark's view for just a moment, long enough for her to say “Anoleis' woman,” and then he released her, acutely feeling the cold where her body had been.

 

“Will you have a drink?” she asked, signalling a waiter before he responded. “About those mineral rights you were interested in. Personally I've always found working with individuals easier than specific corporations. A good friend of mine, Gale Portcus handles the rights I sell, and I could put you in touch if you liked?”

 

“What's the percentages?” This was easy enough, a sort of confidence scam that he might have pulled at a smaller level in a bar. I'm just the poor human trying to play in this big ole' sandbox, please won't you show me how it’s done? Mining rights was a ridiculous topic for this hotel's bar, where the patrons sold trillion credit patents before breakfast, but what would a human know about that?

 

And he hadn't missed Anoleis' comment about Shepard's background either, or the way her accent slipped into the trilling, rhotic rolls of Mindoir when she responded. Another element that he was sure deliberately added to her act for Anoleis' benefit.

 

They talked mining rights for a full glass of very expensive, but sharply unpleasant, sparkling wine, and between the lines Kaidan gleaned there had been a geologist ex-lover somewhere in her past, who might have even have broken her heart, but the rights were just how she maintained a level of wealth. The money came from something else, and he could fill in those blanks with the judicious extranet searches of Mindoir and the compensation those colonists had received from the Council.

 

She spent the blood money the Council had given her for her family on her crew. It was a strange realisation that gave Kaidan an angry-like flutter in his belly. How dare anyone . . . do what, exactly? Treat Shepard as any other Mindoiran?

 

The mark, a turian with unusual tattoos, approached them with another bottle of wine in hand. “If I may?” she interrupted, setting the bottle on the table between them with great force. “I think you'll find this is a much better vintage. Not that I can tell of course, but . . .” her mandibles flapped silently and Kaidan felt certain that he was being mocked.

 

Excellent. Kaidan lifted the bottle and inspected the asari glyphs on the side, “Aluish white,” he said, drawing out three uncultured syllables for the Thessian city. “Thanks very much!” he beamed at the turian, but plunked the bottle back down and picked up his glass again.

 

“What brings you to Noveria?” the turian turned her attention back to Shepard, perhaps deciding that Kaidan was just the arm candy, a role he couldn't say he was very used to. What exactly did the arm candy do when the important person was talking?

 

Stand and look pretty, he supposed, which felt much more difficult than it sounded. Perhaps just figure out what was happening. He'd thought they were meeting for a drink, at least that had been the morning's plan, and she hadn't messaged him to say otherwise. Perhaps she couldn't. Or perhaps his arrival was part of the plan.

 

“Well we're hunting a turian, actually,” Shepard said, and even he was surprised at her forthrightness. But then, who didn't really know that?

 

“Saren?” the woman asked after a moment. “Yes, I had heard. How goes the hunt?”

 

“Not as well as I'd like.” Shepard shrugged and leaned a little closer to Kaidan, bringing back her warmth to his side. “We were hoping to track down Matriarch Benezia but I have to be honest, the bureaucracy here . . . oh it baffles me.” She affected a high pitched laugh.

 

“Well it must be quite difficult for you to understand,” the turian agreed. Kaidan could feel his teeth grinding together and wondered at Shepard's smile. The turian acted as though an idea had suddenly come upon her and she drummed her talons on the tabletop. “Administrator Anoleis is a fair man. He would like to help you very much but there is just so much on his plate. A hanar is smuggling goods through some backchannels, causing the Administrator a great deal of trouble. Perhaps you could . . . look into it?”

 

“Well,” Shepard lifted their gifted bottle. “That's something to consider.”

 

The turian bowed her head and departed, and Kaidan noted that although she headed back to the bar, she reached up to ear as if talking on a comms unit. Disappointingly un-spylike, he thought.

 

“Good work,” Shepard murmured under her breath, regarding the wine properly. “Sorry about this.”

 

He suppressed a smile and hoped their cover was still intact enough for him to enjoy being so enveloped in her personal space a minute or too longer. He leaned down a little. “Are you apologising for giving me work, Commander?” he teased.

 

“Wasn't quite the evening I had in mind but . . .” she trailed off, something at the elevator catching her attention. The energy between them changed, like a wire snapping taught, and Kaidan immediately found himself looking over, at the same time Shepard murmured, “Shit.”

 

The Butcher of Torfan was crossing the bar floor, broad shouldered, shaved head and strong jaw. Perhaps the one person in the room drawing more attention than Shepard.

 

Shepard latched a hand onto his elbow and hissed, “Whatever happens, you need to play along,” she said under her breath, just as the Butcher of Torfan reached their table. “John,” she began,

 

“Shepard,” the Butcher said, with a tone that was a hairsbreadth away from sneering. Kaidan could feel his hackles rising as the man gave Shepard a quick look up and down, “Keeping my date warm?”

 

Which was not where Kaidan had expected the evening to go at all. If he hadn't been so close as to an install an amp into his Commander's skull, hear her sing showtunes under her breath, or know exactly how she took her tea, he might not have had the faith to allow the Butcher of Torfan to lay an arm around his shoulders and grace his cheek with another kiss. He might have argued he'd rather stay with Shepard and demur from the Butcher leading him towards the hotel suites. He may even have missed the plain clothed security guard watching the whole affair from the table in the corner.

 

But he did trust Shepard after all.

 

As the doors to the elevator closed behind them, John Doe brought up his omnitool and executed a pre-packaged command. “Have you been filled in?” he asked, turning earnest blue eyes on him.

 

“Not in the slightest, sir,” Kaidan admitted.

 

“No you wouldn't have been,” Doe mused.  He shot Kaidan a sparkling grin that wouldn't have  looked out of place in a film. “I asked Shepard not to bring any of her people in. She thought you’d be an asset though.” Doe’s gaze lingered longer than was necessary.

 

“Happy to be of assistance, sir,” Kaidan said calmly. “But I’d like to know the mission’s parameters.”

 

Doe’s grin widened. “We’re after the same thing. Anoleis is smuggling some sensitive data through a middle man. I think I’ve identified the mule but,” he shrugged as the elevator came to a stop. “I need confirmation.” The elevator hummed and Doe frowned down at his omnitool.

 

“Sir?” Kaidan offered his own services by raising his arm. When Doe nodded Kaidan checked the commands that the elevator had registered. The reason for their stop was obvious, and easily fixed. He set to work, bypassing some of the simpler security firewalls.

 

“The turian you were speaking to in the bar,” Doe said, “now she’s seen me with Shepard she’ll send her agent to intercept. I can interrogate the agent and the intel’s mine.”

 

Kaidan was glad the elevator has started its upwards climb once more. The agent would intercept Shepard. That was nothing to be concerned about. No logical concern there at all.

 

The elevator stopped, at the right floor this time, and Kaidan drew a breath. Doe nodded to the door as it opened, hooking his arm over Kaidan’s shoulders again and leaning some of his significant mass onto Kaidan’s frame. The pair stumbled out the elevator like prospective lovers and Kaidan instinctively placed his hand on Doe’s chest, pushing his face against the man’s clean-shaven cheek. The corridor was empty, but they maintained the ruse until Doe fumbled with a key and they stumbled into a suite, the lights brightening automatically.

 

Doe snapped to attention again, hurrying across the wide open room, bypassing the bed, and cracking the door to the balcony. Kaidan followed, noticing an array of (fabric) flower petals on the bed. The economic romantic option. He felt oddly charmed as he stepped into the brisk Noveria air. “Damn,” he said, the words freezing on his tongue.

 

Doe was nodding scanning the topline of the roof. “Yeah, and this isn’t even outside proper.” He pointed up to a balcony that Kaidan estimated was two rooms to their left on the floor above. “We need to get there.”

 

“Great,” Kaidan muttered. His fingertips were already seizing up at the thought. Doe was smirking to himself, digging into his pockets for a pair of slimline grip-gloves.

 

“You want the right or the left?” Doe asked, but tossed him the right anyway, pulling the left on and taking a running jump at the hotel’s outer wall, the glove powering on and gripping fast to the smooth outer cladding. Doe kicked up further, scaling remarkably fast for a man with only one glove. Kaidan followed. He would not have admitted to lightening his mass with a field on pain of death.

 

Doe hauled himself over the balcony with superhuman ease, and Kaidan flopped over the rim a second or so later. This room was a grander affair, with no rose petals on the bed but a hot tub on the balcony that was bubbling away and letting off steam, and a slightly ruffled looking Shepard standing over an unconscious batarian.

 

“You took your time,” she said, opening the sliding glass door for them.

 

Doe shrugged as he entered, reaching to push some of Shepard’s hair back into place. “That better not be my informant,” he said, stepping past her to run an omnitool over the batarian’s vitals.

 

Kaidan followed along behind, pausing to glance Shepard over quickly. She was breathing harder than a single fight might have made her, her cheeks were dusted with pink. She barely acknowledged him, her gaze on the batarian, and she shoved the door closed behind him with a thud. “He made a move, what did you want me to do?” she asked, her words sharp. Then, as if hearing herself, she glanced at Kaidan. “Can you check him over?”

 

“You were supposed to pacify him,” Doe said, stepping back to let Kaidan access the batarian’s health implants.

 

“You didn’t tell me he was a damned batarian,” Shepard spat. “The moment you walked out he was all over me.”

 

Kneeling beside the batarian’s body, Kaidan was facing Doe instead of Shepard. He caught the other man’s eye and Doe grimaced. “He’s unconscious but otherwise fine,” Kaidan said, which wasn’t strictly true. The man also had a broken arm and some severe bruising to his ribs, but he couldn’t see the relevance of that right now.

 

“We need to interrogate him,” Doe knelt too. “Can you wake him?”

 

It only took a brief glance over his shoulder to see how Shepard felt about that. She had her arms folded and she wasn’t looking at them, staring instead at the cream coloured wall, her jaws gritted tightly together. He looked again at Doe who gave him a slight nod. “Yes, I can. Give me a few minutes.”

 

“Let’s get him on a chair.” Quietly, Doe and Kaidan moved the man to a chair while Shepard pulled the curtains on the balcony closed and checked the entrances. She gave them a wide berth. “She doesn’t like batarians,” Doe murmured when she was out of earshot.

 

“Oh, you think?” Kaidan shot back, forced to quiet himself when Shepard returned. With the batarian on a chair, bound hand and foot with some quick setting medigel, Kaidan could wake him at any time. Technically he supposed Doe was his ranking officer right now.

 

“You okay?” Doe asked, walking to Shepard. She recoiled slightly, shrugging off his concern with a wave of her hand. “Okay Kaidan,” Doe said softly. “Wake him.”

 

Drawing in a deep breath, Kaidan tuned back in to the batarian’s biometrics, and with a dial of his omnitool, the alien jerked awake. It was not a kind, soft awakening, and when its eyes opened they fixed on Shepard. “You dumb bitch,” it spat, its head rolling back against its shoulders, limbs tugging at the restraints. “Anoleis will-”

 

He got no further. Doe cracked his fist across the batarian’s skull so fast that Kaidan jumped backwards. The batarian’s rhythms spiked on his omnitool, and the man yowled in pain. Shepard watched impassively.

 

Doe dragged another chair over from the dresser and sat down. “You know who she is,” he said, rubbing at his knuckles. The batarian watched him from two swollen eyes. “But I think you know who I am too.”

 

“Damn right I do,” the batarian growled.

 

Doe sat a little straight in the chair, all bulk and threats. “Say it,” he suggested.

 

The batarian glanced at Kaidan, at Shepard, and then quickly returned his attention to Doe. “You’re the one with no name,” he growled. “The Butcher.”

 

“The one with no name,” Doe looked down at his hands, his pearly teeth peeking out from behind his curled lips. “Yeah, that’s right. I never had no family you see, no mother, no father. Nothing. Sometimes I never had a roof over my head. No one cared enough about me to give me a name.” He leaned in a little closer to the batarian. Was it Kaidan’s imagination, or was it straining backwards? “They gave me a name that means ‘no one’, ‘unimportant’. You know I’ve never asked if you pieces of regurgitated shit have a concept like that.” The sound of bone cracking accompanied the batarian’s scream. John slid his chair a little closer. “Do you? You got family and all that?”

 

“Yes,” the batarian gasped, almost relieved to have a question he could answer, something he could give.

 

John nodded. Seeming like he was thinking. He looked back over his shoulder to Shepard, still watching it all with a concentrated detachment. “You know her though, what’s your name for her? Well I guess that doesn’t matter. We call her the Hero of the Blitz. She’s our guiding light. She might be one of the only people in the world I ever actually cared about.”

 

The batarian’s eyes were widening.

 

“Your people murdered or enslaved her family.”

 

At this, Shepard folded her arms again.

 

“And I hear you were a bit ungentlemanly,” Doe whispered.

 

“What’s your point?” the batarian managed in a final show of bravado.

 

“Stop.” Shepard’s voice rang out like siren call. Doe sat back and the batarian seemed to slump like a puppet with his strings cut. “Tell us what we need to know and I promise he won’t touch you.”

 

The batarian looked at her for a long moment, then once at John and once at John’s fists. “Okay,” he whispered. And he told them everything, from Anoleis’ preferred routes into the port to his plan to pin the blame on a patsy at Synthetic Insights. By the time he began to run out of facts to regurgitate he was looking between Shepard and Doe with mounting fear behind his eyes. A silence stretched between the four when he finally finished. Shepard was barely even in the room, her gloved arms tightly wrapped around her waist, her bare shoulders hunched forwards and her head bowed. Doe, still straddled over the chair, flexed his fingers.

 

“She said you wouldn’t kill me,” the batarian whispered.

 

Kaidan could exploit his Alliance registered medic-ID, much as he had when the batarian was unconscious, and trick the alien’s implants into thinking that he needed immediate medical assistance. He could flood the batarian’s systems with a light sedative, enough to knock him out, much like he’d brought him back round only minutes ago. He could do all that, and leave a digital trail blazing, that an Alliance-certified medic had violated trust like that. Or he could hit the batarian hard between the shoulder blades, temporarily blocking circulation from their vulnerable cranial artery, and induce unconsciousness that way.

 

Kaidan hit the man, and his fist sang out with pain, but the batarian slumped, and Shepard and Doe both seemed startled by the sudden display of violence. Doe grinned, leaning back in the chair, while Shepard wandered, apparently idly, towards the balcony.

 

“Is that enough?” Kaidan asked, directing his question towards the unnamed butcher. “Or do you need a little more?” He refused to let his gaze be drawn to Shepard, framed in the window leading towards the balcony.

 

“No, that’s more than enough,” Doe drawled.   

 

“I want to talk to this Qui’in,” Shepard’s found cracked on ‘want’, but neither Kaidan nor Doe drew attention to it. She ran one gloved hand through her hair, and with that motion, she seemed to shrug off her doubts, and as she shook her head, she was almost the Commander again. “Can you deal with this?” she asked, gesturing to the batarian’s unconscious body.

 

“Of course,” Doe murmured. He stood from his chair quickly, crossing the distance between him and Shepard almost faster than Kaidan could track, and he reached his hand to the back of Shepard’s neck. The pair pressed their foreheads against one another, and then Shepard was marching out from the suite, Kaidan following along behind, and the Butcher of Torfan left with a defenceless batarian.

 

They stood together in the elevator as it descended the levels of the hotel, a strange distance between them. She seemed small and fragile, incongruously beautiful and warm for the severe snowstorm that they could glimpse beyond the elevator’s windows. Kaidan called up his omnitool and paused the elevator’s descent between floors, sending a message to the hotel’s central VI that the elevator was empty and just wanted to run a simple diagnostic on itself. That would give them plenty of time.

 

Shepard glanced up as their progress was halted, looking confused and not entirely aware of where she was. “What . . . ?”

 

“We have time,” he said softly.

 

She frowned at him, and then nodded abruptly, wrapping her arms around her waist once more and leaning back against the elevator’s glass walls. She looked as though she was trying not to cry. Kaidan wanted to put his arms around her, to squeeze her and give her some indication that she was not alone, she had him, she had her crew, she had a whole life that she’d built after the batarians had stolen her old one. He thought that might have been a step too far, a kink too many in their complicated chain of command.

 

But after she sucked in a breath through her gritted teeth he did it anyway, telegraphing his movements, and feeling her melt into his embrace, returning it just as tightly. She was warm, even through the layers of their clothes, and they stood like that for a few heartbeats until she pulled away, dashing her hand across her cheeks and even giggling.

 

“I don’t hate them,” she said, her voice steady again, even as she dabbed her fingertips beneath the pigments lining her eyes. “I just . . . I wasn’t expecting it. I was feeling weird about the whole situation and suddenly I was looking at this batarian, asking me if I wanted a drink.” She inspected the fingertips of her gloves and glanced at him, brows raised inquisitively. A little red around the eyes, perhaps, and her make up was not quite so well applied as it had been earlier. She must have read his expression because she grimaced. “I look a mess, don’t I?”

 

More exposed and disturbingly attractive, Kaidan thought, but before he had thought of a better response she was tugging off her gloves and mussing her hair, tucking one glove into his pocket and holding the other. Getting the idea, Kaidan tugged the collar of his shirt down a little and then for good measure untucked it from his pants too.

 

“Your hair,” Shepard, pointed, and he obligingly disrupted his own curls. She scrutinised his appearance and nodded in satisfaction. With every step she took to disassemble her perfect appearance, he could see Shepard a little clearer. She was more herself in chaos, more confident in her skin. “It’s been a weird week,” she said, resuming the thread of her thoughts from only moments earlier, but less shaky.

 

“I know,” he said. “Feels like the deeper we get into this mess, the bigger it seems, huh? And we’re playing at industrial espionage. Seems like every other race in the galaxy is wrapped up in their own problems. They don’t want to see what’s coming.”

 

Shepard rolled her eyes, almost entirely herself. “Wanting to believe everything will be fine?” She chuckled darkly. “Sounds like human nature to me.”

 

He nodded, appreciating her turn of phrase. “Yeah, I guess some things carry across species well enough.” A thought came to him and as he signalled the elevator to start moving again, he continued, “I should remember that after what happened with Vyrnnus.”

 

Shepard gave him a strangely sweet smile and linked her arm with his as the elevator opened. He had a feeling this conversation would be recalled later, perhaps sitting in the mess of the _Normandy_ , late at night, one of their private  tête-à-têtes that were becoming pleasantly common.

 

But for now they emerged back into the hotel and their cover story and a universe that didn’t care at all about their hearts and their feelings. She was still warm against his side.


	5. Exponential Function

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exponential Function: A function whose value is constantly raised
> 
> _______________________
> 
> The stakes are raised when the hunt for Saren brings them to Virmire

Shepard stood at the water’s edge, framed by two of the rugged rock formations jutting up from the crashing surf, her hair slightly bedraggled by the salt spray and escaping from its usual coif, and her lips gently parted in exertion. Her cheeks were slightly pink, eyes wide and alert, and she turned slightly to regard him, eyebrows arching in question.

The dissonance of the image was not lost on Kaidan. He scrubbed his hand through his hair, feeling the salt of his sweat and the sea settle between the curls, and approached to stand beside her. The crashing waves sent a dismembered geth platform drifting over towards them and Shepard flicked her fingers, her biotics sending it further away. Her mouth curled downwards. “You ready for more yet?” she asked.

He felt the urge to draw up her suit’s bio-feeds on his omnitool and clenched his fist to prevent his fingers from giving in. “Always,” he said, while making a show of wheezing slightly.

Shepard grinned abruptly and planted her hands on her hips, hanging her head a little. The sound of their companion marching down the gate’s steps made her look up, squinting against the sun. “How about you, Wrex?”

“Good enough,” the old krogan grumbled, lumbering towards them with Tali in his wake. “But then, if you humans, and quarian,” he added with a deferential nod to Tali, “need a break, I wouldn’t complain.”

Tali laughed, a little breathlessly. “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I could take on a hundred more.”

“You may have to,” Wrex muttered.

Shepard clapped a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder and then twisted her hand in the air, signalling them back to the Mako. The sun continued its climb into the azure sky.

 

By noon there were no more smiles. Kaidan sheltered from the beating sun under the shadow of the _Normandy’s_ nose and kept his gaze trained on Shepard, deep in conversation with the salarian commander, Kirrahe. The hunch of her shoulders suggested it was a conversation that was not going well. From the far side of the bay a shotgun blast echoed around the rocky crags and a good half a dozen of the salarians stopped what they were doing to look at the krogan prowling the surf, their large eyes drawn tight in annoyance. Or fear.

Kaidan ran his hand through his hair again.

“Trynna keep cool, LT?” Ash asked, ducking into the shadows beside him. She followed his gaze across to the figure in the distance and frowned. “What do we do about that?”

“We leave it to Shepard,” he said firmly.

The Chief snorted under her breath and looked to Shepard. “Do you think she’s being sensible about it? Wrex is dangerous.”

“I think if she wanted us to talk to him she would have asked,” Kaidan said as firmly as he could. He stepped around to catch Ash’s attention. “She’ll deal with it her way.” He held the Chief’s gaze until her dark eyes flicked to the sand beneath their feet. When she looked up again, there was defiance written all over her face.

“Kaidan . . .” Ash lowered her voice and glanced just once over her shoulder to where the salarian soldiers were milling. “Wrex has just heard that our enemy is trying to cure the genophage. Do you really think that he’s going to let Shepard talk him down?” To punctuate her comment, another shotgun blast echoed around the air.

“It doesn’t matter what I think, Ash, Shepard told us to leave it to her. So my advice is to _leave it_.” He watched the Chief stalk away from him, muttering under her breath, and then looked back to Shepard, still in discussion with Kirrahe.

“Kaidan?” Tali called from the beach. She stood in the shelter of a tent, her veil slightly tugged about by the breeze, revealing tubes at the base of her helmet. He stepped into the sun and jogged up the beach to see what she wanted, and alongside a salarian engineer began tweaking their comms tower. He wasn’t sure that Tali had asked for his help more than his company, both she and the salarian were more than competent at their task. He didn’t mind the distraction though, it at least gave him something to do until Shepard approached, made it seem as though he wasn’t just watching her.

She called on him and he joined her under the hot sun, aware of the eyes of STG and _Normandy_ crew on them. “Kirrahe’s identified the drive core they’re going to rig as a bomb,” she murmured, looking up at him. “I want you to go over the code, make sure once it’s rigged to blow there’s no stopping it.

He nodded.

Shepard licked her lips, still staring up at him with a strange expression. “I’m going to talk to Wrex,” she announced, in the same factual voice, an order more than a comment.

Kaidan’s own lips were dry too. “Be careful,” he said as quietly as he could.

She nodded, but didn’t look too hopeful. Once more she placed her hand on his shoulder before marching off down the beach. Kaidan’s gaze followed her past the tents, as far as curve of the bay, her figure growing smaller in the distance. He had little doubt that she would be able to defend herself against the krogan if it came to it, but she was so fond of the big alien. He only hoped . . . he hoped it wouldn’t come to it.

The krogan fired a final shot into the shallows. From this distance Kaidan couldn’t see the expression on Shepard’s face, but he imagined her calm mask, the terrifying neutrality that she could sometimes draw upon, like she were an otherworldly creature visited upon them from another realm. From the nods of their heads and the gestures of hands, he guessed that Wrex and Shepard were talking.

And unseen by either was another small figure, keeping low to the ground, but moving down from the rocks higher up on the beach. Ashley.

In one swift motion Wrex was aiming his shotgun at Shepard, while Shepard remained unarmed, and Ashley began moving faster down the beach. Kaidan started to move, only to arrest himself before he’d taken more than a few steps. He could do nothing to help her in time, only exacerbate the situation by threatening Wrex. The cold logic of that was like a knife against his throat, keeping him from moving any closer.

“What in . . .” Garrus’ voice said from behind him.

As quickly as Wrex had aimed the gun, he brought it down. Ash paused on the sands, her own gun raised, but still apparently unseen by the pair. Wrex approached Shepard with slow, steady steps until he was right up against her. After a moment’s conversation, he turned, and spotted Ash exposed on the beach. Shepard’s head jerked as she saw the Chief too, and the Chief stood from her crouched position, putting aside her guns with great care. After a brief exchange, Ash was double timing it back along the beach towards them, and Wrex returned to brooding at the waves. Shepard remained where she was.

“That could have been ugly,” Garrus mused.

“I think Ash is upset,” Tali added.

Kaidan did not doubt it, and wondered what Shepard had said. As Ash loped around to rejoin them he could see pink spots of colour high on her cheeks, her jaw gritted in fury. Kaidan turned to the others. “We have work to do,” he said to them, eyeing Tali particularly. “Let’s do it.”

He worked on the code, like he said he would, but it was impossible not to keep stealing glances at Ash as she cleaned her weapons. He wasn’t sure that she’d appreciate his interrupting, although Tali appeared to have no such compunctions. After her work on the comm tower she sat near Ash and the pair talked quietly with one another, sending the occasional glance round the bay to where Wrex still sulked, or slightly closer to the camp where Shepard was trudging around.

Unable to wait any longer, Kaidan left his task and strolled along the bay to meet her. As he got within hailing distance he could see she seemed drained by the exchange, her head hanging a little low as she walked. “I don’t want to hear it,” she announced before he could say anything.

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, coming to a pause in front of her.

She scowled fiercely. “I won’t have one member of my crew aiming a gun at another,” she announced, her words clipped and all trace of her colony accent gone. She glared at the horizon, the long shallow bay that seemed to stretch into an endless ocean.

Thinking of the krogan aiming his own shotgun at Shepard, Kaidan found himself searching for the right thing to say.

“I told you all not to interfere,” she muttered this and shook her head.

“Ash was following her initiative,” Kaidan said. “You taught her that.”

“So she should disobey a direct order?” she snapped, turning her glare on him now. “The Alliance-”

“Because you’ve always shown such respect for the Alliance’s rules,” he snapped back, surprising himself with the fire in his words.

Shepard’s mouth snapped shut with an audible clack of her teeth and she glared into the elements once more, her brow furrowed against the glare of the sun off the surf, and probably against him too.

“Anna,” he began,

“Don’t call me that,” she whispered, and turned away, striding up the beach to Kirrahe.

Kaidan lifted his face to the beating sun and closed his eyes. If he was a praying man he would have asked for strength in the face of two clashing wills, but he only found himself wishing he hadn’t used her name.

Over the rest of the day they made their preparations, the heat of midday soon spirited away by the winds that drove the waves. He gathered from Tali that Shepard had dressed Ash down severely for her approach on Wrex. He didn’t see much of Shepard at all. When the sun began to slip below the horizon the salarians ordered a set of watches. The tide retreated a little and rocket drones patrolled the skies above them. The STG didn’t seem to think that Saren’s troops would attack before morning, bunkered up as they were, and the crew of the Normandy lingered close to the ship. Kaidan let himself drift towards the water’s edge, further from the quiet discussions happening in camp, and he sat by the sea, watching the twinkling stars reveal themselves in the inky sky.

The bootsteps on the sand behind him were light, barely crunching over the damp grit, but they were loud enough to hear all the same. He glanced over his shoulder to spy the Commander picking her way down the beach in the starlight. The sand, still damp from the tide, luminesced slightly as her steps disturbed the algae. Kaidan felt his breath catch against the thump of his heart.

“Hey,” she murmured as she came within a metre or so of his spot. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” he said warmly, and patted the sand beside him.

Shepard hesitated, gazing out at the dim glow of the sea. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she said as though the words were not quite what she wanted to say, but were better than nothing at all. Kaidan knew the feeling well.

“You didn’t snap,” he said, and Shepard huffed softly under her breath, shrugging with her whole body in a gesture that ended with her collapsing cross-legged beside him. She picked up a handful of damp sand and tossed it at the ocean where the grit pattered into the water like the drumming of fingertips.

“Well I feel like I did,” she grumbled, crossing her arms too and sitting like a sulking child. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” he said, because he couldn’t tell her that he chafed at the chain of command as much as she did, however true it was. They sat in silence, the sounds of the camp far behind them almost inaudible with the ocean crashing against the rocks and hissing through the sand. Virmire felt much like Earth, and this might have been the beach not far from his parents’. It was only the hardsuit, the pistol on his hip, the SMG on his back, and the occasional ‘thwip’ of a shield generator powering on that felt out of place. Shepard had shed all her weapons but her pistol and had unfastened the top few centimetres of her undersuit, exposing a flash of skin at her throat that disappeared beneath armour. A few months ago he would have wondered at the breach in protocol. Now he considered her no less dangerous even if she’d been barefoot in shorts and swimsuit. He wondered if she knew how much she outclassed the typical human soldier, for all she tried to make people forget, did she know it herself?

“Anna died on Mindoir,” she murmured, still gazing out at the sea, and Kaidan realised he had been staring at her.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said, and she glanced at him, holding his gaze with an impassive expression.

“Do you want to hear?”

The answer to that should have been something that deferred to her, that gave her the option of backing down. Or even an outright ‘no’, hiding the secrets of the great Commander Shepard forever. He was still staring at her, he realised, and he wanted to reach up to brush the scar on her cheek. He wanted to know every story that was written on her body and in her heart. “I want to hear,” he said.

Her lips twisted in simulacrum of a smile and she turned her gaze back to the ocean. When she spoke, her tone was cool, clinical, and Kaidan found himself holding his breath. “Anna died on Mindoir because . . . Anna could not have survived the things that Shepard did. I’ve talked about this with the Alliance’s psychiatrists, obviously,” she smirked for a heartbeat, “but it’s still easier for me if Anna never made it off of Mindoir. In many ways she didn’t. Anna had a wonderful life, it was perfect, really. A loving father, mother, two beautiful sisters, a beautiful brother, friends . . . she died with them. Anna didn’t bargain her way onto a freighter at the age of sixteen, and Anna didn’t sleep with a much older man for far too long,” Shepard glanced down there, at her hands digging into the sand. Kaidan wanted to take one of them, hold it in his own while she spoke. He settled for brushing his shoulder against hers. “Anna wasn’t betrayed by that man.” She looked up at him only for a moment, as calm as ever, “And Anna wasn’t sold to an asari slaver for her biotics.”

Kaidan drew breath, to say or do what he did not know, but Shepard silenced him with a tight smile on her face.

“ _I_ was,” she whispered. “And I was rescued before the transaction could be completed.” She looked to the ocean again and leaned her weight against his shoulder. “I hoped that my family were dead, so they weren’t slaves, and then I hated myself for hoping.”

I’m sorry, he didn’t say, but he was so sorry that he hurt. He wanted to lift his arm and wrap it around her waist, hold her close, but so close to the camp they might be seen. They were compromised enough if someone were to appear. If Ash was to walk down . . .

“I was traded to the asari again,” she commented with fake cheer in her voice. “This time by the Alliance, at least, and at least with my consent.” She nestled her cheek into his shoulder a little and his arm slipped around her waist despite his better sense. “But Anna couldn’t have done that. Couldn’t have allowed it. So I don’t like that name.”

When she finished she shivered a little and he squeezed, trying to catch a better look at her face, to see if she was only cold or if there were any tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. “Shepard,” he murmured, feeling as though he was testing the name, and she lifted her head to look at him, a slight grin on her lips, “tell me about working with the asari,” he said.

Her grin blossomed into something real and she made herself a little more comfortable against him. “That was . . . it was fun. They call me ‘their human’. It was entirely secret of course, but the Alliance credits it with improving relations between Earth and Thessia. They send more now, whenever they have a particularly strong biotic. It was just after Elysium, and the Alliance didn’t really know how to handle biotics, as you probably know.”

“They sent you to the asari to train you. Wrex was right.”

“Yeah. I worked with a Commando squad, I was one of their Huntresses. I did end up sleeping with one of them, Wrex was right about that too.”

Kaidan chuckled. “Lucky woman.”

Shepard shook her head, but said nothing. She stayed tucked up beside him, and he imagined that if they weren’t wearing their armour she would be warm against his side. “Are you ready for tomorrow?” she asked quietly.

“The bomb’s been programmed,” he said, which was true. He could feel the seconds slipping by with every wave that reached the beach, and still Shepard made no move to leave the shelter of his arm. Someone would see them, very soon.

“I was going to ask you to stay with the bomb,” she continued in her quiet voice, “But I need someone with Kirrahe. Someone to help lead them.”

He drew breath to say the words that were on the tip of his tongue, wondered if she’d hear him, or if she would pull away from his arm and leave again, skulk away in a rage. But if they couldn’t play by the Alliance’s rules, he had to at least play by his own. And if Ash could only have a moment to prove herself to Shepard, to step out from the shadow of the great Commander, and her own grandfather . . . “Ash could go with Kirrahe,” he said.

Shepard stiffened slightly against him and she tilted her head to regard him. “You’re a brave man,” she mused, a slight smile on her lips.

It would be a simple twitch of muscles to lean in and kiss her, to throw away the last vestiges of protocol by moving only a matter of inches. She bit her lip and glanced away, shifting so his arm fell by his side and there was a respectable distance between them again.

“Do you think she can handle it?” Shepard asked, her voice rasping a little.

“Undoubtedly.” He had to swallow, his body sluggish and disconnected from his mind. He wanted to say _Trust me, trust yourself. She would never do anything to hurt you, she idolises you. We all do. They idolise you. I worship you._

With her gaze holding his, Shepard rose to her feet as fluidly as she’d sat down. Her expression was inscrutable, until she captured her bottom lip between her teeth and Kaidan realised, belatedly, she’d been wanting something from him. Or perhaps just him. He couldn’t help shaking his head a little, groaning as he looked back out to the sea.

“You’re good at this, Kaidan,” she murmured. “You’re good at people.”

“Not in your league, yet,” he said, and stole a sidelong glance.

Shepard smirked and shrugged one shoulder, twisting to show off her figure as she headed back up the beach. “No one is,” she called back.

He watched the stars twinkle against the shiny black of the ocean and thought she was probably right.

 

In less than twenty four hours, he knew she was right. She’d gone toe to toe with a half-indoctrinated Spectre and emerged with little more than bruise. She fought like nothing he’d ever seen. It wasn’t dirty so much as feral, protecting the things she cared for with tooth, nail and biotics. Not an even an asari commando could fight like that.

And then, in the briefing, while rage and grief had him demanding answers in front of the crew she remained quiet. “Williams is dead. We can’t change that.”

_But if I had suggested I go with Kirrahe . . ._

Kaidan ran his hand over his hair, feeling phantom grains of sand and salt even after decontamination and a long shower.  He leaned back in the mess’ uncomfortably stiff chairs and closed his eyes against the bright lights. The rest of the crew had, thankfully, given the ground team a wide berth. Still, it felt like he could sense their presence, as though their proximity grazed at his skin.

The sounds of heavy footsteps and slightly laboured breathing made him open his eyes to watch the big krogan fetch himself a coffee. Wrex gestured to the table and Kaidan nodded, not simply out of politeness. The battlemaster had been hurt badly in his defence of Kaidan and the bomb, and he wasn’t sure what must be going through Wrex’s mind. Did he regret his actions on Virmire too?

“How are you doing?” Kaidan asked at the same moment the krogan said “So how are you coping?”

Wrex lowered himself into a chair and grunted a laugh, inhaling the aroma of his coffee. “I’ve felt better,” he admitted, setting the mug on the table. “But I’ll _be_ better. Soon. How are you?”

Kaidan pursed his lips, trying to find the answer that died on his tongue. “I’ve never lost a soldier under my command before,” he said slowly, “Not to enemy action at least.”

Wrex nodded slowly. There was an ugly bruise on his right cheek, one that had left his eye bloodshot and dark. He was moving slowly, even drinking the coffee carefully.

“I keep thinking-” Kaidan blurted

“Don’t.” Wrex twisted to fix him with his good eye. “You couldn’t have done anything.”

“Shepard wanted me to go with Kirrahe,” Kaidan hissed, checking over his shoulder for any lurking crewmates. “I convinced her Ash would be better.”

“And Ash held the line,” Wrex said in a level tone. He slurped some coffee and winced, at the taste or the ache in his face, Kaidan wasn’t sure. “Shepard made the only decision she could. She protected the bomb. She protected the assets.” He set the coffee mug down and grimaced. “This stuff is awful, I don’t know why you humans drink it.”

The only decision she could. Kaidan thought of her, lit by starlight and fluorescence, biting her lip as she looked down at him. The thoughts that chased after the memory made his body jerk with shame.

“Kaidan . . .” Wrex said lowly, drawing his attention again.

Kaidan steeled himself for a platitude, for something like Shepard’s cool voice back in the briefing room. More theories that could never be proven.

“If you’re thinking like this, what is she thinking?” the battlemaster asked softly, inclining his head in the direction of the Commander’s door. “If you’re worried that she picked you, do you not think she’ll be obsessing over that too? Heh, humans. You’ve the luxury of a short life, don’t worry so much about what may or may not bring you a moment’s happiness.”

After a moment, Kaidan closed his gaping mouth. “I don’t know what you mean,” he managed, flatly.

Wrex smirked. “Sure you don’t."


	6. Deterministic Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future
> 
> __
> 
> The crew of the Normandy find themselves hurtling towards a bad decision, and Kaidan and Shepard try to guess where they might end up based on their past.

The _Normandy_ wasn’t big enough to hide from a crew, but Shepard seriously considered giving it a try. She stirred to consciousness, her limbs stiff and battle-heavy. The sheets were tangled beneath her hips, her skin beaded with sweat and feeling chilled in the _Normandy’s_ carefully controlled air.

Her dreams had been strange, formless and undeniably alien. Ancient. Abhorrent.

Ship-time read a little past 1100 hours. Joker must be holding them out from the Hades Gamma relay or the jump would have woken her. From here they’d head through the Exodus Cluster, and then onwards to the Widow relay. By the time they reached the Citadel, barring any unforeseen delays or heavy traffic around the Exodus Cluster, Ashley Williams would have been dead for a little over a week. Her body would still lie on the other side of the galaxy.

Her stomach growled and she stared up at the bulkhead above her bed. She’d never been a morning person and her thoughts coalesced slowly, shedding the oddities of her dreams and grasping the loss of Williams a little firmer. She wondered how quickly they were hurtling through space right now, how far from Mindoir she was, and if she was truly losing her grasp on the situation as quickly as she felt.

With a sigh, she heaved herself out of bed and staggered to the shower, planting her feet in the recessed basin and soaking her body in the warm water.  The feel of the water trickling down between her shoulder-blades was like the blood that had poured from her cracked skull in her dreams. A memory that her fractured subconscious had constructed to make sense of the prothean beacon. That was the truth, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

She took time over her appearance when she dressed, made sure that her hair was tied up in a tight, regulation bun, that her shirt was cleanly tucked into her pants and that there wasn’t a fleck of dust on the navy blue fabric. She could only hide in her cabin for so long. She took a deep breath and stepped through the door, squaring her shoulders and nodding to the first crewmember she saw.

 Lowe was in the pilot’s chair and she nodded when she heard Shepard approach behind her. “We’re about two hours out from the Relay, ma’am,” she said.

Shepard nodded, casting her eye over the readouts. It was more a distraction than anything else. She had learned the value of delegation early on. If called upon, she would have been able to get the _Normandy_ through a relay, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. N7s were competent as a rule, but no one was perfect, and N7s couldn’t afford the luxury of self-deception. Neither could Spectres, if she thought about it. She turned back down the _Normandy’s_ long nose to find Kaidan marching towards her, a datapad clutched in one hand. She froze like a rabbit.

“Commander,” he announced, stopping in front of her and thrusting the pad between them. “My report on Virmire.”

Kaidan’s reports were always perfectly written and delivered in plenty of time. She rarely did more than glance them over when they arrived in her inbox, appending them to her own before sending the data dump to the Alliance. She stared now at the pad held between them like it was a tripmine.

“Commander?” Kaidan prompted, his voice a little softer.

She reached out to take the datapad, careful to keep her fingers away from his. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” she said, and when he handed the pad over his eyes met hers, holding her gaze a moment before he nodded and turned away.

Fraternisation regs told her not to look down, but she did, because regs had never been her strong point. One more truth she knew about herself, and this one wasn’t even one she tried to hide. She sighed, tapping the pad off the fingertips before taking it to read at the galaxy map. Whatever Kaidan wanted to say about Virmire she at least had to do him the courtesy of reading it.

Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t his familiar, comfortingly professional style, objectively laying out the events of Virmire. The almost incidental insistence on the fact he had recommended Ash for Kirrahe’s other squad. And then a letter to Ash’s family that was compassionate and kind. He’d said to Shepard that he’d never lost a soldier under his command before. Shepard wondered how long he had spent over this report.

She was jolted from her reverie by Joker heading for the cockpit, carefully clutching a mug of coffee.

“Take us through the relay as soon as you can,” she said to him, receiving a solemn nod in return. She filed Kaidan’s report and leaned against the rail of the galaxy map, watching the stars flicker beneath her.

Once the idea formed in her mind it was clear how she was going to proceed. She collated the pieces for the Alliance’s report and the letters from various crew members to the Williams family and sent the data packet on a high priority channel to Hackett. This kept her busy until 1400 and she sought out Kaidan in the mess. He’d finished his meal and was about to escape below decks, to keep some distance between them, but on her command followed her into her cabin.

“Pull up a chair,” she said, taking the one at her desk and twisting it around so she could face Kaidan. She crossed her legs and clasped her hands in her lap, watching as Kaidan folded his height down into the chair. He planted his feet apart, nervous perhaps, and rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his own hands half in prayer, waiting for her judgement. Her good friend, John, had once told her she would never know how lucky she was to be ‘small and innocuous’. He’d said that she could slip into a room unnoticed, whereas he, with all his height and muscles, would always be seen as a threat. She wondered if Kaidan thought she was innocuous and somehow, with a familiar certainty, knew that he didn’t. Kaidan always noticed her. He’d noticed how she’d struggled with losing Ash. And had tried to shoulder all the blame for it.

“You’re not responsible for Ash,” she said, a small smile softening her tone. “I forwarded your report, but you should know I took full responsibility in my own.”

Kaidan was frowning and drawing breath to protest, so she raised one hand. “My crew, Kaidan. My responsibility.”

“With respect,” Kaidan began, and he winced. Ash’s voice must have echoed in his head just as it echoed in hers.

“ _Kaidan_ ,” she murmured, half closing her eyes. She longed to wrap her arms around him and climb into his lap, to give him the comfort he deserved and hear his heart beating through his shirt. But it was that desire that had him all twisted up inside.

Her invocation had a slightly different effect on him. Kaidan straightened in his seat and he repeated “Kaidan?” like he’d never heard his name before. He cut off a laugh, shaking his head at the way she’d used his name, soft and imploring. A lover’s plea in all but action. The absurdity hit her.

She grinned. “You can be so stubborn at times,” she chided, while Kaidan raised his eyebrows in affront, his smile badly masked. Shepard could see the future play out in front of her, he would realise he shouldn’t be smiling this soon after the death of a subordinate, and his worries about his feelings would come crashing back, and he would withdraw. They’d both become sombre and go their separate ways, return to opposite ends of the ship to work through their tangled thoughts and just hope that they might come to the same conclusion.

And sure enough the smile was fading from his face, his body growing stiff and formal once more.

_I might love you_ , she thought suddenly, and she could feel a blush creeping up her neck. She dismissed him and waited for the doors to close behind his retreating form before she groaned to herself.

Despite her best intentions, Anna Shepard was not the type to fall in love easily. She had always found love to be difficult, even dangerous. For her years her friends had despaired of her. Evenings in dark bars where Jane had told her to love the one she was with. Mornings in John’s kitchen being told to stop loving the ones that didn’t love her. She’d never been able to oblige them, and tried not to think too hard about why. Once her heart had settled on someone it needed to be broken to shift it. Her heart did not always have the best taste.

She stared, unseeing, at the terminal on her desk. N7s didn’t have the luxury of self-deception, but this was a secret she buried deep. A secret that she only acknowledged if she saw the whole of herself. She had been many things in her life. A victim, a hero, a soldier, an N7 . . . a Spectre. Truly, though, she was a weapon. She wielded people as easily as she wielded gravity. Sometimes she would catch sight of herself, either in a mirror after battle, or in the words of the report from her superiors, and she would look away. No one liked to think of themselves as an instrument of chaos. She could see the outline of her reflection in the terminal’s projection, the hard edges of light giving her a ghoulish appearance.

She thought that only a few people had learned the great secret. Hackett, yes, Anderson she wasn’t so sure. Some dark figures in her past. Commander Shepard, chaos-bringer, could be harnessed. Once she loved, she would move the heavens for the object of her heart’s desire. When she loved someone she adored them, worshipped them . . . protected them. They would want for nothing that she could provide.

If her lover wanted someone dead, they need only whisper it to her in the evening.

It was a truth that she normally kept locked away in the darkest recesses of her soul. Alongside the knowledge that she was one more bad day away from becoming what Hackett might term ‘a problem’. Alongside the knowledge she might one day slip away from the world, head through the nearest relay and . . . be gone, be lost to gunfire, blood and destruction.

Truths that didn’t sit well with who she wanted to be. Who she tried to be. Nonetheless they were true.

She closed her eyes to hide from the distorted reflection, and the dreams of the ancients resurfaced, the horror of the Reapers weighing on her shoulders.

_You could leave the_ Normandy _at the Exodus cluster, find a leather jacket, hop on a freighter, and you’d be gone. Any Merc crew would pay well to have you on your roster. You wouldn’t be the hero of the blitz, the orphan of Mindoir, the first Spectre, you’d just be you._

The door chimed and Tali came in, looking to talk, and the little voice went quiet. With someone to look after, the chaos-seeker was tamed. For a while.

 

When they’d reached the Citadel the pieces fell into place for a heartbeat, before spiralling out of control once more. She received her grounding with silence, while rage roiled inside her. The crew obediently packed their possessions on board, filing out of the Normandy and towards Alliance berths in the docks. She gave Kaidan orders to keep an eye out on them and went to lurk near the cockpit until she was sure mostly everyone had disembarked. She snapped something unkind when Joker tried levity and marched back down the _Normandy’s_ nose to collect her own things. In her locker she still had the battered kit bag she’d arrived with.

It felt a very long time ago.

From Spectre to disgrace in the space of a matter of months. It was almost laughable if it wasn’t _her_. She slammed her palm against her lockers, her biotics tingling enough to give her a painful static shock that numbed her limb.

“Damn it,” she hissed under her breath, kicking the locker in frustration and bruising her toe in the process. A hysterical bubble of laughter nearly escaped her and she slumped against the locker, dropping to the deck and resting her weight against the locker.

Kaidan hurried down from the sleep pods, his own kitbag slung over his shoulder, and he demanded to know if she was okay. She thought she saw his fingers going to his omnitool before he realised she wasn’t so much hurt as broken. He dropped his bag to the deck and approached slowly, studying her. “I’m sure there’s a way to appeal,” he offered, “We’re under Alliance authority, after all. Not the Council’s.”

She wondered about that. She’d been leaning on that Spectre status more and more in the last few months. “Official channels are closed.” She rested her head against the lockers and stretched her legs out in front of her. “They were quite clear about that.”

Kaidan raised his eyebrows at her. “Closed. And we’re supposed to accept that?” He shrugged and folded his arms, affecting an air of nonchalance that didn’t work well for him. “So, where do you think the best view will be when the Reapers roll through? If we have to sit it out, may as well get a good seat.”

_Hit a relay, hop a merchant vessel, Merc up and make a living on murder._ She grimaced. Temptation was not the missing chemical in this reaction. She took a deep breath, calling on the Commander Shepard she wanted to be. “We’re out of the game for now.” Kaidan was studying her like she was the first Spectre, the N7 Commander, his leader. Like she was totally unknown to him. “I need you to be there while I figure things out,” she said softly.

“You know you can count on me,” he almost let that breathe for a moment before appending, “or any of the crew, Commander.”

Oh for . . . “Come on, Kaidan. I can get a salute from anyone on this ship. Sometimes I need a shoulder.”

At this he tried not to smile, and mostly managed to hide the twitch of his lips behind a scowl. He stepped closer. “Yeah. I always leave a way out. You know that.”

Her expression probably showed she knew that.

Kaidan crouched, coming down to her level. “I’m here for you. But we’re in a rough spot, and the last thing I want to do is muddy things. Like it’s all that clear to begin with.” As one, they looked down at the space between them. Kaidan licked his lips. “Are we the pride of the fleet or not? Are we valued agents or just peons?”

_Hit a relay. Hope a merchant vessel. Become Mercs. Make a living on murder. Fuck him all night and all day until he prays with your name on his lips. Be his._ She shook her head to clear the thoughts and winced. “Can’t just pull out a good old-fashioned _it’ll be alright_ , can you?”

He grinned and got to his feet again. “It’s that easy, huh? Okay then. Everything will be fine, Shepard. You’ll figure it out.”

_I know I love you._ The thought made her stomach flip like she was floating in zero-g. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

If he was feeling the same, he played it close to his chest. His voice dropped a little as he spoke, “I could get used to it.”

Shepard tilted her head a little as she scrutinised him. Was that a ‘ _hop a merchant freighter and fuck until the end of the world_ ’ “I could get used to it” or a ‘ _you’re my commanding officer and we’re already in the Alliance’s bad books_ ’ “I could get used to it”. Was there a middle ground there?

Kaidan blushed a little, his cheeks darkening. “I guess we have some downtime to figure out what we are, huh?”

What we are . . .

He reached for her hand and it was the easiest thing in the world to take it, and to let him pull her to her feet with a little too much force. She didn’t check her motion and so she landed against his chest, her hand coming up to rest on his shoulder, and his settling around her waist. The fit was natural, secure, and she could see the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Hop a merchant freighter. Fuck until the end of the world.

She leaned in, felt his hand tightening around his waist, each finger making an indentation against her skin. Her chest hurt from the breath she was holding and she stood up on her tiptoes and Kaidan leaned down toward her.

“Sorry to interrupt, Commander,” Kaidan’s fingers gripped her waist painfully tight. “Got a message from Captain Anderson.”

Kaidan’s scowl was ferocious and he clung to her for a moment as she tried to step away. He relinquished his grip with great reluctance and placed the hand he’d had around her waist over the nape of his neck, half closing his eyes in an attempt to regain control.

She filed that away. One day she’d see him lose control. “Are you spying on us, Joker?” She could see Kaidan grimace at the thought. Once Joker delivered his message she turned back to the locker, lifting her kit bag. Kaidan reached for his too, and he fell into step with her towards the airlock.

_Merc up. Fuck . . ._

She didn’t need to see him to know he was watching her walk.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I try not to replicate the dialogue so precisely in my writing but I love the locker room discussion so much . . . 
> 
> I keep think I'll finish this at the end of Mass Effect, but we'll see how much my pre-Andromeda excitement sustains me.


	7. Primes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A natural phenomena that describes numbers greater than one, with no positive divisors other than themselves. 
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________________________  
> There is another battle, and another legend, and Kaidan isn’t sure where he stands.

Somewhere in the stars she had become a person and not a myth, not the Hero of Elysium, not Humanity’s First Spectre. If he had been asked a year ago about Commander Shepard he would have said she was an exceptional soldier, and the best the Alliance had to offer. He might have told them he’d served with her once on the _Tokyo_ , a short mission where he hadn’t seen much of her but she had been polite, professional, and perhaps a little frightening. It would have been against the rules to admit he’d been extracting her little team from a classified mission, and he would never have said she had been wreathed in blood and violence, and that she had looked terrifyingly fierce.

Now, if someone was to ask him about Commander Shepard, he’d think immediately of her laugh when she had introduced Wrex to crepes and lemons in a market on a backwater colony. He’d think of the way her eyes had sparkled at Kaidan as she’d licked the juice that trickled down her wrist. He’d think of her voice raised in passionate debate with Tali about one of their obscure and beloved series of novels, the pair unable to agree on anything from their preferred love interest for the main character to whether the asari author had ever done any historical research – much to Liara’s chagrin. Or he’d think of the way she’d slam her drink down when he’d deliberately needled her into defending colony autonomy. How she would lean forward, pointing a finger at him, eyes narrowed, and no matter how much booze she’d consumed she’d come out with a reasoned solution for whatever argument he’d offered as devil’s advocate. And she would scowl when she noticed he was laughing, and cry out that he was deliberately goading her. He would agree, because she’d convinced him long ago, and now he just liked to see her get passionate. One day she’d be a politician, he had no doubt. She’d tell him the next round was on him and although he knew he shouldn’t, he’d buy them more drinks.

The day they stole the _Normandy_ , she was a storm that swept through the docks, partly legend and partly a force of nature. He wondered how she held all those names inside her, how she could be everything to everyone. A young C-sec cop tried to stall their entrance to the _Normandy_ and Kaidan found himself moving between the raised gun and Shepard. He lifted a hand. “Son . . . don’t,” he said, just before Shepard turned around to narrow her eyes at the kid. “Go home and tell the story,” Kaidan advised, and the kid lowered his weapon.

Shepard glanced at him, then back at the kid, and nodded as the officer stood aside. “Well handled,” she murmured to Kaidan as he flanked her on the approach to the ship. It was praise from a leader, or a goddess, or the thanks of a friend. He was finding it harder and harder to tell.

The next time he was on the Citadel he was escorting Hackett through secured corridors. They headed to where Shepard’s small task force had been brought after being pulled from the wreckage of the Presidium. The Admiral was a force of nature himself, and when the likes of Udina tried to speak to him, Hackett had a way of making it seem like he was deigning to answer the Ambassador’s questions. He even had Udina fumbling for a response.

Kaidan could only be grateful that when he stepped into the clinic, he found Wrex and Garrus on their feet and only a little battered and bruised. While Hackett spoke to Anderson, Wrex approached him, clad only in the undersuit of his armour and some patches of medigel on his hump. “She’s okay,” he murmured. “In there,” he added with a nod of his head to another room.

Kaidan waited. Shepard was finally relinquished to the Admiral dressed in borrowed blues and moving slowly and stiffly. She smiled when she saw Kaidan waiting for her, a small, sweet quirk of her lips that seemed instinctive, and he couldn’t help saying “Hey,” when he saw her, fisting his gauntleted hand against his thigh to keep from reaching out to her. Hackett and Anderson probably saw. Wrex certainly did. He clapped a paw on Kaidan’s shoulder as if to hold him back.

Hackett greeted the Commander warmly and the days of classified debriefs began, of going over every detail of his report on Ilos, and then every report he’d ever filed on the _Normandy_. He barely saw Shepard, only caught glimpses of her in between meetings that were far above his paygrade. He slept in the barracks, along with the rest of the Alliance crew. He tried not to think about the night they’d shared.

As one of the Alliance’s oldest biotics he’d never flown under the radar, but being part of the Battle of the Citadel was something else. His fellow soldiers wanted to buy him drinks, and ask about the woman he tried not to think about. He and the rest of the _Normandy_ crew had become their own legend. After the second night in the barracks Garrus invited him to stay in his apartment, where Tali had also taken up residence on his sofa, and Anderson had quickly agreed to Kaidan’s hesitant, stilting request.

Garrus’ apartment was small and not what one would call homely. When Kaidan arrived with his kit bag, Tali met him at the door, and he could make out a grin behind her faceplate. “Come on in,” she said, taking his bag and showing him around the space. “I’ve really tried to tidy,” she mused, dropping his bag on the small floorspace between the screen and the sofa. Someone, and he suspected it hadn’t been Garrus, had arranged blankets and pillows there for him. “I’ll fight you for the sofa if you want it,” Tali added.

“Or Tali can have the bed and I’ll fight you for the sofa,” Garrus said from the bed’s recess. He was perched on the mattress, reports scattered around him on the sheets. He still bore medigel seals on his neck and had one arm in a sling.

Tali tutted and shook her head, and Kaidan lifted his hands to stall the argument. “Really, the floor is perfect. I’m in so many meetings today that a soft mattress would be entirely wasted on me tonight. I’d sleep on anything.”

Tali chuckled and Garrus flapped his mandibles in sympathetic agreement.

“Speaking of, I have to head. Thanks again for the floorspace.”

“No worries, Garrus trilled in a deep voice, “Hey, Wrex is taking us out for dinner tonight, are you coming?”

 

That was, more or less, how Kaidan found himself in a dark little restaurant with a krogan, a quarian and a turian, eating the best dim sum he’d ever had in his life, and drinking some strong Citadel brew, listening to one of Wrex’s tall tales about his mercenary life. Here, away from the Presidium, they were just four friends. The only looks they got was when Wrex howled with laughter, thumping his fist into the table as Tali finished a story about her and Ash on Noveria.

“Where was I during this?” Kaidan asked, searching a red-rimmed levo bowl for a remaining dumpling.

“You and you-know-who were off doing something secret,” Wrex said, fixing Kaidan with his left eye. He seemed to favour looking at Kaidan from that side. “Like usual.”

He protested, only to earn the amusement of his friends.

“You two are always off doing something secret,” Garrus muttered, rubbing at his jaw.

“That’s not true!” Kaidan reached for his drink only to find it empty. Already? Huh.

“It’s not,” Tali soothed, “Sometimes you’re both just off ‘ _talking’_ ,” and she giggled so much she started hiccupping, Garrus patting her between the shoulderblades.

“You guys are dicks, you know that,” Kaidan announced, dialing up another round of drinks from the menu.

Tali made a deeply unimpressed noise from behind her helmet, and waved the approaching waiter down to retrieve her next drink. “I thought that it was quarian men who were obsessed with their appendages. One more thing my pilgrimage has taught me.”

“I wouldn’t say I was obsessed,” Garrus seemed stung while Wrex huffed with laughter.

“I reckon I am,” the krogan said with a shrug. “But your pilgrimage must be done now, Tali? Are you going back to the Flotilla?” He folded his arms on the table, leaning forward, uncharacteristically serious.

The table grew quiet, the future spreading out in front of them. There were few scenarios where they might expect to work so closely together again. Tali would return to the Flotilla, and her people would no doubt welcome her with open arms. Garrus would return to C-Sec, and be their own Hero of the Citadel. And Wrex . . . “What about you, Wrex?” Kaidan asked. “What are you going to do next?”

“Been thinking about that myself,” the old krogan mused. He took a drink.

“I missed a transport out to the traverse today,” Tali admitted. “They want me back . . .”

“But you don’t want to go?” Kaidan asked.

“I don’t . . . not want to go,” Tali managed after some reflection. “I want to see Shepard before I leave.”

“Where _are_ they keeping her?” Garrus asked, and the three looked to Kaidan.

He held up his hands. “If I knew I’d mount a rescue mission,” he said.

“And we’d come too.” Tali clinked her sterilised canister against his glass.

The three of them made it back to Garrus’ apartment without causing any major diplomatic incidents, a win in anyone’s book, and found their way to their bunks in the light of the neon signs outside the window. Garrus again made an attempt to offer Tali his bed, which she declined loudly, and soon Tali was on the sofa, Kaidan sprawled on the floor, and Garrus snoring softly, face down on his bed.

“Kaidan?” he heard the modulated voice ask, pitched soft.

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember back on Zhu’s Hope? When we were guarding the colonist against the Thorian?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember what you said to me?”

Kaidan turned over, propping himself up on one elbow to see Tali was facing him, the lights from outside reflecting off the visor and metals of her suit. “What specifically?”

“I was worried that Shepard didn’t trust me. That she didn’t think I could handle myself.”

“Yeah, I remember now.”

“And you said I shouldn’t read anything into it.”

He remembered. The crawling Thorians that stank to the heavens, and the frightened, confused colonists who’d escaped its control. Tali had impressed him on that planet, her aim with that shotgun was lethal, but it was her good humour and relentless optimism that had stuck in his mind. If he had to pick someone to be stuck on a zombie planet with, it would have been her.

“So should I read something into the fact I was left on the _Normandy_ for the biggest battle of our lifetimes?”

He smiled a little at her wounded pride. “No, Tali, she left me behind too. And Liara.”

“But why us? We’re just as good as the others.”

“And Shepard prefers small team work, Tali, you know that.”

“You don’t worry that she . . .”

“No, Tali, I don’t.” He tried to keep his tone soft. In the dim light he could only make out the edges of her helm, the reflections of neon, and she probably saw even less of him. “We were where Shepard need us to be, that’s all you need to think.”

“And what if Shepard needed us safe?”

For a moment, Kaidan considered answering her honestly. But that would involve telling her about his quick march towards Shepard’s cabin as they fled the Widow nebula, and standing in front of her in the dark. _If I didn’t think you were doing the right thing I wouldn’t be here_. The memory of her looking at him through long, dark eyelashes as he’d said that still made his insides hum with excitement. The way she had captured her bottom lip with her teeth, and taken a step closer into his space, so close he could smell the Alliance-issue soap off her skin, it was burned into his neurons. Every time he’d been close to her, from the first time he’d placed his hands on her shoulders to change her amp, to holding her in his arms in Noveria while she shivered, sitting together on the damp sand of Virmire . . . the possibility of finally, finally knowing what she tasted like had been more intoxicating than any drug.

She had smirked at his fumblings, _Kaidan, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of you serving under me._ Only she could have said it with enough teasing to make his awkward word choice seem halfway flirtatious. Somehow she found him charming, which had to be some kind of previously undiagnosed brain damage. He finally had his hands on her with no one watching, no pretence of friendship or camaraderie halting the exploring of his fingers as he teased her shirt up from her waistband. Finally felt how soft her skin was beneath his.

Her ragged voice as he backed her towards the bed, _I’m not looking for a pet, Kaidan, I’d have gone elsewhere for that._

He could have kissed her then, finally, finally, but he had hesitated, searching her widened eyes for some acknowledgement of what they were heading into. It was as though she lived only in this moment, and Ilos was forgotten. _I’m glad you didn’t. This can’t change anything, Shepard._

To tell Tali that Shepard had promised it would change nothing would be to tell Tali he had extracted that promise from her by tasting the long trail of skin from hip to thigh, and she had knotted her fingers in his hair, dug her nails into his shoulder, nipped her teeth at his earlobe, and had fallen asleep curled against his chest. She had been warm, her heart thumping against his skin, and she had promised him she’d treat him like any other soldier.

He’d been an idiot to believe her.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Tali,” he murmured, and lay back down. After a moment, Tali shifted, facing the sofa’s back and depriving him of the reflections of her visor. His omnitool buzzed his wrist gently and he dialled the light down, glancing at the message from Alliance Command. He, and the rest of the _Normandy_ crew, had been granted a month’s R &R. Those that wanted it were granted passage back to Alliance space. They’d receive their next assignment within a few weeks.

He watched the neon reflections dance on the ceiling for many hours.

 

The next day he escaped the apartment early, giving Tali and Garrus space to deal with their hangovers. Early in the morning, while he was drinking a coffee in a cramped little wards café, he received a message from Shepard.

_Hey – have you taken your R &R yet? I’m going to have to stay on the Citadel a little longer, any chance we could catch up before you go? _

‘Before he went’. He wondered if he’d be leaving at all.

The Hero of the Citadel was not left to recuperate just anywhere. She had been put up in the Tarito Hilton, along with many of the privileged displaced Citadel residents. The Alliance had posted marines to the hotel, their blue armour standing out like a beacon among the plush red upholstery and golden trims. Their very presence felt like a steadying weight among the well-dressed Citadel denizens, keeping everyone from drifting off into zero gee. Kaidan lingered in the hotel’s foyer, the bright blue continuing to draw his gaze. It whispered an idea into the back of his mind, something subtle and . . . Shepard-like. The Alliance were stepping in where the turians would usually have stood.

Of course the Fifth Fleet was here already, Hackett could easily say he was simply being helpful.

His ID codes were recognised by the Hilton’s VI and he was directed towards a large luxurious suite on one of the highest floors. He palmed the door chime and waited, his fingertips digging into the smooth edges of the panel, and he counted the seconds as he exhaled the breath he was holding.

She opened the door. He found himself looking down on a Shepard who was casually dressed, a pair of loose pants and a soft grey sweater, her long auburn hair all bed-mussed and tangled over one shoulder, and her face still bearing the yellowed bruises from her final battle with Sovereign. A secretive little smile shone on her face as she saw him, and she glanced each way down the corridor before latching her arms around his shoulders and tugging him inside, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him.

He had a script in his head, and he could almost hear it drop to the deck behind him as he followed her into the room, wrapping his arms around her waist and leaning down into her kiss.

She hissed and winced as his arm brushed against her bandaged ribs and he released her instantly, catching her by the shoulders and taking a moment to inspect her while she rolled her eyes and submitted to his examination with thinly worn patience. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said, finally placing one palm against his chest and pushing him firmly away.

“You’re hurt,” he responded, but he backed off. “And they’ve been pulling you in front of the Council like this?”

She drew breath to argue but bit down on whatever she’d been about to say. Instead she took his hand and led him deeper into the suite, bringing him to a truly enormous sofa that curled around in a semi-circle and wouldn’t have even fitted into Garrus’ apartment. Shepard had made her nest in the middle, walls of pillows that had to have been dragged from the bedroom, and several datapads strewn around. Not to mention not one, not two, but three empty mugs neatly grouped together on the floor.

“Sit,” Kaidan said, stooping to collect the mugs. “Have you had lunch yet?”

Mutely she considered this before shaking her head, and she took up her position in her nest, using the pillows to support her broken ribs. She watched him return the mugs to the kitchenette on the far side of the room, and he hunted for another in the cupboard.

“So,” she said as he set the kettle boiling, “Are you heading back to Earth?”

The hotel had provided a wide range of teas, coffees, klahs and their various accruements. Shepard had opened some asari teas and had filled the French press. He rinsed the press and refilled it with a moderate roast that smelled amazing. “I don’t need to,” he replied to her question, filling the press and hooking his finger through the handles of two clean mugs. “I might just stay here.” He turned back to her with the coffee in hand and caught her delighted smile. “I guess it depends on what you’re doing.”

Shepard glanced down at her lap and pressed her lips together to control her smile. She raised her gaze to take a mug from him, waiting for him to pour. “I’d like that,” she said softly.

If he’d thought about it, Kaidan would have expected to feel awkward, to stumble over his words, to shake as he poured the coffee, but it felt perfectly natural for the two of them to sit together in the middle of the oversized couch, coffee mugs in hand, their knees brushing. They didn’t talk about Shepard’s battle, or the crew, but instead of Earth. They talked about the differences of living planetside, shipside and stationside, and debated the finer points of each over the first cup of coffee. When he stretched over to put his empty mug on the table she handed him her mug too, rolling her eyes at his logical defence of sleeping pods. “Yeah, but on a ship you can’t do _this_ ,” she said, and she climbed into his lap, planting her knees on either side of his thighs and pushing him against the sofa’s back and settling her hands on his shoulders.

“You raise an excellent point,” he said, careful not to hold her too tight, conscious of the bandages around her ribs, conscious of the fact half a ship had fallen on her, and still painfully aware of how hard he wanted to squeeze.

“Yes, I know,” she teased. She pressed closer, flattening her chest against his, and kissed him slowly. It was very different from Ilos. Her injuries encouraged patience but it was the lazy thrill of taking their time that had Kaidan settling back against the cushions, closing his eyes in bliss. They might have been like that for months when the door chime interrupted them. He opened his eyes to find his hands tucked up underneath her sweater and hers clasped at the nape of his neck, her fingers brushing through his curls.

The VI added in its monotone voice, “Admiral Hackett. Captain Anderson.”

Shepard’s eyes widened and she covered her explosive laugh by burying her face in his shoulder. Kaidan couldn’t have snatched his hands out from under her top faster if he’d tried. Rolling off and landing on her back, her legs still hooked over his lap, Shepard reached up to pat his arm. “You’re here to catch me up on the crew, go answer the door,” she murmured, her eyes sparkling.

“Why me?” he hissed, trying to right his uniform and disentangle himself from her at the same time. The door chimed again.

“Because I’m injured,” she said in a demure tone that didn’t match with the wicked smile on her lips.

Kaidan went for the door, checking over his shoulder before hitting the controls. Shepard was sitting cross legged on the sofa, her hair once more swept over one shoulder and an innocent expression on her face.

The door swished open and Anderson announced himself with a crack about Shepard sleeping in, which died halfway as he found himself confronted with Kaidan. “Alenko,” he said, a little uncertainly.

“Admiral, Captain,” Kaidan said, standing back to allow them in.

Anderson scowled and Hackett smirked, clapping his hand on Anderson’s shoulder as they entered the suite. “For now,” Anderson muttered, and then decided to resume his needling of Shepard. He took a seat not too far from where Kaidan had recently had his hands on Shepard’s breasts, and Hackett sniffed out the coffee instead.

“Sir?” Kaidan found himself standing at ease opposite Shepard.

“She didn’t tell you?” Anderson grimaced. “Shepard nominated me as human councillor.”

“Human councillor?” Kaidan repeated. He’d wondered if they’d get a seat on the Council for their efforts, especially considering the Fifth Fleet’s sacrifice to save the Destiny Ascension, but this was sooner than he’d expected.

“Better you than you know who,” Shepard said, and she held out her empty mug as Hackett approached with a fresh pot of coffee. Judging from the smell he had selected a far stronger roast.  

“Well remind me to thank you later,” Anderson grumbled.

Hackett poured Shepard a coffee, handed a mug to Anderson, then finished his service by taking a long drink from his own mug. Once his addiction was fed, he looked sidelong at Kaidan, and Kaidan studied him right back.

“Not heading to Earth, Alenko?” he asked.

“I saw my family recently,” Kaidan said, aiming for nonchalant and feeling certain he missed.

“Hmm.” Hackett circled around the room and took a seat on Shepard’s left. Shepard didn’t even uncross her legs, as though she thought nothing of one of the Alliance’s greatest Admirals seeing her barefooted and recently kissed.  

Anderson looked over his shoulder at Kaidan and frowned. “Don’t just stand there” he said, “You’ll make me uncomfortable.”

“Yes, sir.” Obediently he sat on Anderson’s right hand side and stole a quick glance at Shepard. She seemed far too amused for someone who had been kissing her subordinate five minutes before her superiors walked through the door. She seemed so unbothered that he found himself grateful he had placed Anderson between them. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d reached out to place her hand on his knee, or worse. While he fretted, Hackett launched into an explanation of the Fifth Fleet’s actions. It was like he was delivering Shepard a report, and Shepard listened and nodded along encouragingly. The _Normandy_ was being flown back to Arcturus today for a short spell in dock, but Hackett was hoping to have Shepard back in charge within the month.

“Some of your crew have already indicated they want to serve on the _Normandy_ again,” Hackett added, greedily gulping down the last of his coffee. “What about you, Alenko?” he asked, his gaze snapping to Kaidan.

With the attention of Shepard, Hackett and Anderson on him, Kaidan found himself shifting in his seat. He wished he’d discussed this with Shepard instead of spending his time engaged in heavy petting. “If Shepard will have me,” he said, and Anderson chuckled a little.

“You’re a good soldier, Alenko. You’ll need to keep your head down if you don’t want promoted _off_ the _Normandy_ ,” he warned. “Or of course Shepard could nominate you for a Council position, if you prefer.”

“Only you, sir,” Shepard said sweetly.

While Anderson and Shepard sniped at each other, Kaidan didn’t fail to notice that Hackett’s attention was still on him, cold blue eyes taking in every aspect of his discomfort.

“What about you, Shepard?” Hackett asked when the trading of barbs lulled.

“Kaidan’s a valuable member of my crew, I’d be happy to have him on board,” she said, and he could believe it himself, if the memory of her climbing into the Mako without him didn’t worm its way to the front of his mind.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Hackett said.

The conversation drifted again, discussing the clean-up of the Citadel and future strategies for the Alliance with the impending Reaper invasion. Anderson had always been open to suggestions and Hackett was personable after his coffee, so Kaidan found himself volunteering his own opinions at times. Anderson turned the topic towards Shepard’s next meeting with the Brass, and Kaidan heard himself say “I think Shepard needs a bit of R & R as well as her crew.”

An Admiral, a Captain and one Commander looked incredulously at him, Anderson seemed quite baffled at the idea, while Hackett frowned slightly. “Valuable crew member indeed,” Hackett said, giving Shepard a long look that she returned with her poster-girl smile. “Well with that in mind, David, we’ve shirked our duties long enough.”

Anderson still seemed to be spinning his wheels in the mental mud, but he got to his feet and said his goodbyes to Shepard, telling her to rest up. He turned to Kaidan, “Good to see you again, Alenko,” he said, resting his hand on Kaidan’s shoulder. It was intended to be comforting, but Kaidan was entirely distracted by the scene behind his former Captain. Hackett had left his mug on the coffee table and was leaning down to say something quiet to the seated Shepard. He rested his hand on her shoulder, much as Anderson had placed his on Kaidan’s, a very human gesture of fond respect. But then he leaned in closer and Shepard tilted her face so the admiral could press a kiss against her cheek. It was familial and quick, so much so that it had to be something that had happened before, that their fondness for one another permitted this egregious breach of regulation.

It was so quick that as Anderson turned to say goodbye to Shepard, Hackett was already standing straight with his hands clasped behind his back. Shepard and Anderson exchanged more formal goodbyes and Hackett gave Kaidan one last long look before nodding. They saw themselves to the door and Kaidan turned his attention to Shepard.

“What?” she mouthed.

He waited for the door to close behind their superiors before he pointed to her cheek. “That standard protocol?”

Shepard grinned and shrugged one shoulder. “That was for your benefit, dear,” she teased.

Had he just met the parents? What exactly was the nature of the Admiral’s relationship with his Commander? “Do you care about any rules at all?” he asked after a moment.

She tilted her head quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t think Hackett kisses most people on the cheek,” he muttered. In his discomfort, he started to tidy up.

Shepard watched him thoughtfully. “We colonists have different ideas about rules,” she said as he dumped the crockery into the washer. “And about fraternisation.” Kaidan turned back to her, eyebrows raised, and she made a face. “Don’t,” she exclaimed, “Hackett has always been kind to me. He’s like an uncle.”

Infuriating woman. She folded her arms over the back of the sofa, resting her chin on her shoulder, watching him wrestle with his thoughts. He’d told her it couldn’t change anything, but perhaps for her it really hadn’t. This was the world in which she operated, a world where an Admiral passed judgement on your love life, a world in which an Admiral asked for your opinion. “You don’t think it’s dangerous?” he asked. She raised her eyebrows. “How can Hackett order you into danger if he feels about you that way?”

Her gaze softened. “How could I order _you_ into danger?” she asked. “Kaidan, I will lov-”she caught herself, her cheeks reddening, “I’ll love you even if I don’t get to be with you. Hackett cares about me whether or not he kisses my cheek when we’re among friends. Pretending those feelings don’t exist won’t make anyone any safer.”

He had been pulled closer by her words, so she had to tilt her head to look up at him and he could brace his arms on the sofa’s back. He held himself just out of her reach, watching her tongue wet her lower lip. “I _need_ rules, Shepard,” he murmured, fascinated by the play of light on her scarred cheek, the way her bruises faded beneath her blush.

“And I _have_ rules,” she breathed, almost plaintively. She sat up on her knees, bringing her lips to within kissing distance of his. “But they’re my rules. They could be yours if you wanted . . .”

He leaned down to close the distance between them. This was a ruleset he understood. Judging by her delighted hum beneath him, she liked these rules too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why am I falling back in love with Kaidan before Andromeda? No one is going to be able to live up to this baby. 
> 
> I'm thinking of taking this up through to ME2, but I'm interested to know if there's anything in particular you guys would like to see.


	8. Terminator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The line which demarcates a planetary body’s illuminated and dark sides.  
> Or  
> A resistor which prevents signal transmission progression at the end of the line.  
> Or  
> An operator indicating where a logical statement ends.

For the next few days they made the four walls of the Hilton suite their own private castle, fortified against the outside world.

In the oversized and gauche reception room they shared the stories of their scars, exploring skin with fingertips and tongue. They learned each other’s preferences. She learned he was ticklish on his ribs, and exactly how to smile at him from across the room to bring him to heel. He learned she liked to be touched, to have a hand brush her waist when he said hello, to have his arm slung around her shoulder when they watched bad movies, and he learned that she liked to be teased. For Shepard, peace was being able to cut free from the restraints of proprietary and wrestle for victory on any number of thorny issues. She didn’t always want to win either.

Kaidan liked a victory that ended up with her breathless and distracted beneath him. She liked resuming the debate when he was entirely deconstructed and disarmed, when he could barely form a sentence other than ‘I love you’. She didn’t hold those victories against him, it wouldn’t have been fair, but she liked it when he was defeated beneath her and willing to say black was white to make her happy.

In the deepset bath they were simply silly. They spent an evening practice levitating bubbles with their biotics, and decorating one another with the scented suds. Shepard revealed she loved to swim in the freshwater lakes in the highlands of Mindoir, and Kaidan talked about cold mornings spent in the salt of the Pacific. They drank a whole bottle of champagne and filled the bath twice, and were wrinkled when they finally admitted defeat.

In the darkened bedroom, curled around one another, they talked about falling in love. Their ideas of love were ultimately very similar, expressed with words like ‘freedom’, ‘honesty’ and ‘safe’.

Their fortress was strong, but not impenetrable. Shepard still had to speak to the Council, to the Alliance, to trade information with other Spectres. Kaidan resented every hour she was taken from him. He worked with Chakwas, who was writing a paper on his and Shepard’s biotic metabolisms and the impact that had on post-mission care. She and a few other doctors were happy to study him in a hospital that felt more like a goldfish bowl, and between demonstrations of lifts and pulls he wondered if he could be happy riding a desk if it meant that he’d always be there when Shepard was on leave. He reminded himself that whatever they were, they had only been this way for a matter of days. Anything could happen.

Still, after discussing it together over breakfast, he took a video call from his mother at the hotel. He sat at the broad windows overlooking the Ward, while Shepard worked on some reports off camera. She planned to hand him a coffee at a good moment, and he found her duplicitous nature utterly charming, so the call was delayed an hour or so.

His mother appeared on the screen, her hair bundled atop her head in a bun and wrapped in an old satin scarf, a few coils escaping at her forehead, a sure sign she’d been cleaning. Sure enough the doors to the deck had been flung open, the late evening sun gilding the room. If they hadn’t stopped the Reapers, Earth would have had no warning, and his mother would have been cleaning the walnut floors that she hated and his father loved when the end of the world emerged from the skies. The thought took his breath away, and gave his mother opportunity to scrutinise the background behind him and demand to know where he was.

“In a hotel,” he said, “I was stopping in to see Commander Shepard.”

“Ohhh,” his mother started craning her neck to see around so he lifted his omnitool to give her a better view, which brought Shepard into frame. Shepard smiled and waved, a certain fixedness to her expression that Kaidan now read as nerves. “Commander Shepard!” his mother exclaimed, clapping one hand up to her hair. Kaidan knew he was not going to hear the end of his mother being shown to Commander Shepard with her hair under her cleaning scarf.

“Morning Mrs Alenko,” Shepard sung out, waving her hand. She hesitated, “Or . . . evening, I guess, where you are.”

Suddenly his father emerged from the hallway behind his mother, leaning down to peer at the screen. Kaidan caught the faintest muttered warning from his mother before his father started with, “Commander Shepard, a delight to meet you. You are an honour to all of us humans, I hope you can teach my son a thing or two.”

A few months ago, Kaidan would have bristled, and it would have been up to his mother to smooth over ruffled feathers. Today Shepard immediately left her reports and sat down beside Kaidan, unleashing all her poster girl charm and wide-eyed idealism to weave her spell over the older Alenkos as easily as she had done their son. Kaidan almost sat back to watch the magic happen to someone else for a change. Shepard happily answered questions, more or less truthfully, about herself and their time on the _Normandy_. She praised Kaidan perhaps a little too much, though even his father was happy to hear it for once. Finally, she accepted their good wishes graciously and placed her hand on Kaidan’s shoulder, giving him a pleased smile, “I’ll let you talk to your family in peace,” she said, still giving off the appearance of the Commander. He smiled back.

“I think they’d rather talk to you,” he said.

Shepard winked at his parents, squeezed his shoulder, and got up from her seat to leave. The moment she was past the camera and outside of his parents’ view she spun to face him, stuck her tongue out, and lifted her top to flash him her bra, collapsing into silent laughter as he tried to keep a straight face.

“You look good, I’m pleased,” his mother observed before they said goodbye. “I hope we see you soon? If Commander Shepard is ever on Earth please tell her she’s more than welcome to come round,” she added, while his father started explaining to his wife why Shepard would have much more important things to do.

“I’ll tell her,” Kaidan said. On the other side of the room Shepard was frantically nodding and miming eating a meal. On the spur of the moment, he nodded to his mother, “She’s hinting at a home cooked dinner,” he said. Shepard laughed out loud and bounded across the room, leaning back into frame to stick her thumbs up at his parents.

“Yes! Home cooked food! I’m never too busy for food,” she grinned. In her exuberance she overbalanced and grabbed his shoulder to keep from falling into his lap.

Kaidan grinned at his mother’s knowing expression and his father’s confused frown, “Hopefully see you soon, mom,” he said.

“I look forward to it,” she said warmly. “Goodbye, Commander Shepard. And goodbye, Kaidan. Take care. I love you.”

“I love you too, mom.”

When the call ended, Shepard tightened her arm around his shoulders and pressed a kiss into his cheek. She walked off, humming to herself and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

 

Their fortress couldn’t halt time. Crew from the _Normandy_ returned to the Citadel, and the _Normandy_ herself reappeared through the Relay, docking in the Alliance’s bays with no more battle scars. The time they spent together became more fractured, interrupted by handovers and crew rosters.

As if to mark the end of this era, they headed back to the fusion restaurant deep in the Wards. Garrus, Wrex, Tali, Liara and Joker joined them, and with the whole group they pretty much booked the place out. The food was good, the beer flowed freely, and Shepard sat beside him, so close that her elbows brushed against his side as she gathered dumplings up between her chopsticks. After the second beer he guessed it would be okay to drape his arm over her shoulders, and since no one, not even Joker, fainted from shock, he left it there.

Even when he wasn’t dating a superior officer, this sort of behaviour wasn’t like him.

“There’s still a place on the _Normandy_ for you if you want it,” Shepard was wheedling Tali, while the quarian shook her head.

“Come to the Flotilla,” she injected an extra trill on the ‘a’, signifying that was truly drunk. “Think of what you could do for Quarian-Council relations, a Spectre on the Flotilla!”

“Maybe I will,” Shepard challenged, a grin robbing her of any gravitas.

Kaidan was fairly certain he loved her.

His hand had tightened on her shoulders a little involuntarily, and she glanced up at him, eyebrows raised in question. He wanted to lean down and kiss her forehead, but that was just a little too far for now. Instead he cracked a joke about Shepard’s notorious dislike of ship-bound living, and Tali piled on with another crack about proper suit maintenance which signalled a round of ‘Shepard-in-the-middle’ which she tolerated only barely, scowling as her crew teased and joked about her various weaknesses. Kaidan trailed his fingers over the skin of her upper arm, just beneath her rolled shirt sleeve. She leaned into him, “Yeah, laugh it up, Wrex,” she growled, “I’m not the one who ran from a rat on the _Cornucopia_.”

“Hey,” the krogan snapped, “that was a creepy ship. I wasn’t expecting it.”

As they said their goodbyes outside of the restaurant, Shepard embraced Tali tightly, murmuring things like “be careful” and “take care of yourself”. Tali clung to Shepard, telling a long story about how grateful she had been to serve with Shepard, and how she would miss them all. Kaidan found himself pleasantly drunk and surrounded by people he cared about, in one of the quieter neighbourhoods. It was easy to hug people goodbye, to kiss Liara on the cheek, to be lifted bodily by Wrex, to bump his forehead against Tali’s visor and manage to navigate Garrus’s spurs for a hug. He put his arms around Shepard as they watched the others hail cars or head for the elevators, and murmured in her ear what he thought they should do with their last free evening.

She was dead within the month.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I did that deliberately - next chapter next weekend I think.


	9. Negative

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A concept representing the magnitude of a loss, or deficiency
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> 
> The SSV Culloden rescues the survivors of the Normandy from the wreckage around Alchera, and the galaxy adjusts to the loss of the infamous Commander Shepard.

In memory, everything happened at once.

The pod was ejected from the _Normandy_ and then tumbled into the black.

Aaron screamed in agony as Kaidan pushed his arm back into his socket.

They heard Joker’s howl on the radio.

The touch of Shepard’s fingertips on the inside of his wrist as he said goodnight.

He begged, over and over, for Shepard to hail them.

The SSV _Culloden_ hauled them in, and Kaidan found himself to be the ranking _Normandy_ officer.

The pod rotated in space, and an eezo core explosion blinded him.

Captain Gillies approached him in the med bay and ordered him to sit, “You’ve done all you can, Alenko.”

 

Time seemed to right itself when he woke in one of the _Culloden’s_ sleeping pods. Per his omnitool’s readouts, he had slept for just over ninety minutes. He’d allowed himself one full REM cycle.  

He hopped from the pod, scrubbed the sleep from his eyes, and marched to the CIC. After months on the _Normandy_ , the _Culloden’s_ CIC seemed pressed up into her nose. Gillies was standing over his readouts, grey-faced and with a little stubble on his cheek. He looked resigned, tired, the face of a man who knew that Commander Shepard had been missing in action for eighteen hours now, and that her chances were vanishingly slim. Gillies had promised Kaidan he wouldn’t rest until she was found, if only Kaidan would let himself catch some sleep. And now he didn’t have the look of a man who was bearing good news.

“Lieutenant,” Gillies said, bowing his head in deference. “Still nothing. Hackett wants to speak to you. You can use the conference room.”

The wreckage of the _Normandy_ was too piecemeal to sustain a person, and all but one pod, which they had tracked to a smear on Alchera’s surface, had been recovered. Whatever had hit them was still out there, and could return for the _Culloden_ at any time. Shepard’s hard suit, even if undamaged by the _Normandy’s_ drive core exploding, would have only sustained her in the vacuum for three hours. Even then she would have been breaking records. The _Culloden’s_ crew were studiously avoiding the _Normandy_ survivors, and Gillies looked as though he would remember this day for the rest of his life.

Kaidan headed for the conference room and Hackett made himself available surprisingly quickly. “Alenko,” he said, and judging from the bleariness in his eyes he hadn’t been sleeping much either. “Any news?”

Kaidan stood to parade rest, met Hackett’s gaze, and began to speak. “Commander Shepard has been missing for over eighteen hours. We have wounded crew members here and the _Culloden_ is not outfitted for so many passengers. Whatever attacked us may still be out there. I recommend calling the _Culloden_ back to Arcturus.” He had wanted to say more but his throat closed over his words.

This morning, Shepard had handed him a coffee after he left the sleeping pod. She’d offered him a sympathetic smile and when they’d had a moment alone he’d told her how much he missed her bed. “Just my bed?” she’d teased. That might have been the last thing she’d said to him. The last thing that wasn’t an order.

“Thank you, Alenko,” Hackett said quietly. The Admiral seemed to be staring past him, the cogs in his mind turning. “Kaidan,” he began, and fixed him with the familiar piercing gaze. The question tailed off. Hackett didn’t want to say it, didn’t want the words in his mouth.

It fell to Kaidan. “She’s gone, sir.”

 

Hackett’s debrief on Arcturus was so close to the bone that it numbed him. He answered the questions, he bore Hackett’s restrained sympathy, and when he was ordered on leave he returned to his mother’s house almost by instinct.  Walking through the door he felt the tears gather at the corners of his eyes, and he shook off his mother’s concern and slunk off to a bedroom, claiming a migraine.

Time became something he could only think of in fractions. The time he’d had with Shepard was his only constant. As the days passed, he crept closer to being without her for as long as he’d been with her. Then one day he had lost her for longer than he’d had her. He hibernated in his parents’ house, dreaming fitfully of Shepard and Ash and Vyrnnus and Pressly and Lowe and the Dravens and . . .

When he was awake he would conjure Shepard in his mind’s eye. He tried to memorise each and every smile she had. The smile of triumph when someone admitted she was right and they were wrong. The soft curl of her lips when she was watching Liara and Tali talk the history of Flotilla. The teeth-flashing grin when she was challenged by Wrex to lift something nearly unmovable with her biotics. His favourite, the slow, sleepy morning smile she would greet him with when he woke her with a kiss.  

The news of the _Normandy’s_ destruction was out. Tali wrote him a long letter that he could only read in snatches, it hurt too much. Garrus sent him something shorter. Liara appeared at his door, and his mother tried not to eavesdrop as they sat in the kitchen and talked.

He couldn’t hide forever. He begged Hackett for work, and was given a tedious assignment on Arcturus, running security for an asari diplomat working there. It was exhausting, boring, and gave him little time to be lost in his memories. One evening the Butcher of Torfan was waiting for him at the end of his shift, a tall and lithe red haired woman standing beside him.

“We’re going drinking,” Doe announced, and Kaidan agreed.

The woman turned out to be Jane Lupine, a fellow N7. Her mother had been one of the first responders to Mindoir, and had met Shepard then. Doe revealed this in a rambling monologue about friendship and history that Kaidan only half listened to. Lupine remained silent, drinking steadily as Doe railed about how damned stupid Shepard was to go and get herself killed.

“We served together on Watson,” Lupine announced when Doe went up to the bar to get them more drinks.

Kaidan lifted his head from his palm, wondering what this quiet woman would have to say about the dead.

Jane traced her finger in the rings of condensation on the table. “She was a good friend,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Kaidan shuffled further into the booth as Doe returned. “It’s hard to believe she’s really gone,” he said it because it was the turn of phrase people had started using, the people who had accepted that she wasn’t just missing in action, but had been killed. It was a strange thing to say.

Jane shook her head, and for a moment he thought tears might spill onto her freckled cheeks. “No,” she said. “Good people die. It’s not hard to believe.” She slammed one of the shots that Doe had brought, and then took another.

There was so much that he and Shepard hadn’t shared, so many friends she’d had that he’d never met, and so much of her that he had no claim to. “Why did you come find me?” he asked John, quietly, so that John might be able to ignore the question if he wanted. _Please say you knew, please say she said something, that she threw rules to the wind like always and told you she loved me_.

Doe sat back, thinking about it, his face puzzled.

On the opposite side of the table, Jane lifted her gaze to them and shrugged one shoulder. “He probably fancies you and wants a pity fuck,” she announced.

Doe feigned outrage, and Kaidan felt a knife twisting inside his guts. “Well, no offence, but I don’t fraternise with superiors,” he said.

The rejection was like water off a duck’s back to Doe, and two of Shepard’s oldest friends continued their grieving, entirely unaware of the broken heart beside him.

 

The Alliance still used her image on one of the largest billboards in Arcturus. She stood in dress blues, gazing out at the crowds with Elysium’s famous fields behind her. Beneath her breast, the words ‘ _Stand With Heroes – Join the Systems Alliance Today_ ’ were emblazoned in silver. On official records three little letters remained after her name: ‘M. I. A.’ If she was missing, they could keep that billboard. If she was killed, what heroes would the hopefuls be standing beside?

Hackett invited him to his office one day, and asked him to sit. “It’s time to get back to work,” Hackett said, taking his own seat behind his desk. “The Reapers are still coming, and we are woefully underprepared.”

“I’m not sure what I can do.”

Hackett fixed him with that all-seeing glare. “Do you want to know why we chose her? Because she was the compromise we could all agree on. There were a lot of names on that list. Yours wasn’t that far from the top.  Now, Anderson has a mission for you. But the choice is yours. You can sulk in your tent a little longer if you need.”

In cowed silence, Kaidan was on the next flight to the Citadel. 

 

Anderson had him reconnoitring one of the worlds the geth had been known to occupy. In typical Anderson style, he was working across species, and the team that met him there were primarily quarian, led by the one and only Tali’Zorah vas Rayya. He and the quarian team worked through the abandoned structures, finding only automated systems and traps, as though the geth had pulled away from the planet in a hurry.

In the evening he and Tali sat on a rocky outcrop, safe behind their hardsuits, protected from the poison atmosphere, and watching the sunset. “Garrus has gone,” Tali told him. “No one really knows where.”

Kaidan said nothing, just watched as Tali hugged her knees to her chest.

“I think he loved her.” Tali looked at him. “In some way. Maybe more than we knew.”

“If I’ve learned anything over the last few months it that everyone loved her. It would be sickening if it wasn’t true.”

Tali hummed in agreement. After a moment, she turned her visor towards him, the glass as inscrutable as usual. “It must be horrible,” she observed. “On the Flotilla we don’t talk much about these things, so I don’t know if I’m doing it right. When you live on a ship all your life you don’t have room to escape your mistakes. You fall in love carefully. You don’t talk about it. You don’t show it until you’re _ready_ to show it.”

“She wasn’t like that,” Kaidan heard his own voice say. “That colonist upbringing, I guess.”

“She talked to me a lot about living on a planet. About all the sky.” Tali tilted her head upwards to look at the burnt umber above her. “She told me how her people would always talk about whatever romances were going on, or who had what secrets. I’d never heard something so alien,” and she chuckled, letting her chin drop back to her chest. Kaidan bumped his shoulder against hers, grinning behind his own faceplate.  

“It was alien to me too,” he assured her.

 

One of the Alliance’s great heroes made an appointment to meet him on the Citadel. In the human Embassy suite, he found himself sitting across from the imposing Alec Ryder. Compared to the pictures in the history books, Ryder was slightly grey at the forehead and temple, but otherwise still possessing a long, thick shank of black hair that was swept back from his weatherbeaten face with less patience than care. He was the distracted type, with flecks of oil staining his rolled shirt sleeves and more than a day’s growth of stubble on his jaw.

“You’ve heard of the Andromeda Initiative, Lieutenant?”

The spiel that followed had the well-rehearsed edge of a sales pitch, but it was well tailored. Kaidan could hear where Ryder had made allowances for Kaidan’s history. Ryder played on the romance of being the first human to step foot on a planet that had never been seen by human eyes. He talked about walking into history.

Kaidan listened. Ryder told a good story, and he believed in what he was selling. He needed very little encouragement other than the odd ‘hmm’ from Kaidan, and when he wrapped up, Kaidan had long since finished his coffee. “What about the Reapers?”

For the first time, Ryder hesitated. “You believe in them?” he asked, cautious.

“Everyone should.”

Ryder thought about it. “What do you plan to do about them?” he asked. When he wasn’t selling, he spoke slowly, considering his words long ahead of time. “If they are coming, can you stop them?”

“I can try.”

“Or you can ensure that humanity lives on, in another place. What’s keeping you here? Family? We have room for family.”

No room for ghosts though. Kaidan was polite, but firm. Ryder left sorely disappointed. When Kaidan next saw Anderson he got the impression that the Councillor was deeply pleased with him.

 

The Reapers were not easy to forget. And they were not easy to prepare for. Hackett and Anderson moved quietly, collecting their loyal soldiers and distributing them throughout the galaxy. Kaidan’s place on the board was that of the solitary soldier, touring the far flung and stubbornly obstinate colonies that wanted nothing to do with the Alliance. No two colonies were exactly alike, but there were many similarities. Successful colonies, those that were able to pay their way in the galaxy, were generally proud and slightly secretive about their world. For them, the Alliance wasn’t giving them their fair due. The smaller colonies, the failing colonies, the newer colonies, they were generally populated by hard and taciturn people who preferred living on the edge to living under another’s thumb. As a single marine, Kaidan was almost acceptable to their egos, and he liked working alone. Alone he didn’t have to explain why he was quiet, why he didn’t spend time getting to know people, and why he wouldn’t talk about his most famous mission. He sent Hackett and Anderson detailed reports of each colony’s defences, and made improvements where he could.

And then one day, Anderson ordered him to Mindoir.

Before he’d begun to make his travel arrangements, Hackett contacted him. It was almost a routine call, if it hadn’t ended with Hackett’s off-hand statement that he was due to take some of his unused shore leave. Hackett could find someone else to take the next mission, if he liked?

Kaidan caught the next flight to the little garden world with a dark past.

In spite of, or perhaps because of its troubles, Mindoir had become a popular alternative holiday destination for those who could afford the mass. Kaidan took one of the popular shuttles from Nos Astra and sat beside a young asari couple. The others were mostly human, and a range of ages, but there was a turian woman too and their pilot was a salarian whose chipper attitude kept the passengers entertained on the hop through the relay. The pair of asari were talking eagerly about what they’d do on the little blue rock, and planned to camp on a large mountain that was allegedly very beautiful. As they began their descent through the azure skies, the pilot began a report, “It’s another beautiful day on Mindoir, with average surface temperatures at the Crystal River settlement at twenty five degrees Celsius. We’ll be touching down at a little past 1100 standard hours, local time, and you know what they say, it’s all blue skies-”

A few passengers chimed in “and high fires!” They grinned at each other.

Kaidan spied one of the asari searching the phrase on her omnitool, “Ooh, the ‘high fires’ references a festival,” she said excitedly to her partner.

The shuttle pad was shielded from the settlement by a thick copse of silvery firs that rustled in the downdrafts. Kaidan stepped out onto the pad and was hit by the smell of fresh, mountain air and the sounds of a busy and lively encampment over the cooling shuttle engines. Many of the shuttle’s occupants were reuniting with friends or family at the edge of the landing pad, embracing, kissing, laughing. Kaidan looked for the Alliance lieutenant who had promised to meet him. Since Crystal River had been re-established as Mindoir’s chief settlement in 2171, the Mindoirans had accepted an Alliance garrison on their planet. The planet’s governance was infamous for driving hard bargains with commercial interests and prioritising the needs of their cooperative, but he knew it was considered a good posting among his fellow Alliance soldiers. Walking down into the street, he could see why. There was barely a prefab to be seen. Mindoir was built in brick and wood, concrete and glass. It was more like a picture postcard than a colony.

He was met, not by the Lieutenant, but by a short, older woman with grey hair who introduced herself as Mindoir’s First Minister. She guided him through the streets, explaining in no uncertain terms what he could and could not do on his visit. He was free to inventory their defences and report on the garrison. He was free to stick his nose into their fortified bunkers beneath the earth. He would not be allowed to limit their trade, to compromise their tourism, or to suggest that they owed more to the Alliance than they already gave. Mindoir must remain independent.

During this walking tour, Sal was approached by many of her citizens who told her strange unconnected facts, such as their cow had finally calved, they’d found that recipe they’d been talking about, and Sierra was finally over her colic. Whether Sierra was a human or another cow, Kaidan wasn’t entirely sure. Others approached to ask about him, and Sal introduced him as a soldier who had served with Shepard. A soldier who was there to help them prepare for the Reapers. They accepted this explanation easily, as though ‘Reapers’ were a perfectly acceptable explanation, and welcomed Kaidan to Mindoir, offering advice about where to go or what to eat. Kaidan was left at the garrison’s barracks a little disorientated and greeted by a friendly Lieutenant who clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to Mindoir,” she said, kindly.

Unlike most successful colonies, Mindoir was not secretive. He was practically invited into peoples’ homes when he mentioned he was auditing security measures. When he inspected bunkers the civil engineers eagerly awaited his feedback. And unlike most independent colonies, Mindoirans were friendly to a fault. If he stepped into a store he was given free samples and all their attention. If he ate outside of the barracks his meals were always mysteriously paid for. He sometimes spotted the asari couple on his travels, and they looked as blissfully happy as a pair could be on holiday.

It was the most relaxing mission he’d ever been on.

Sensing his confusion, the Lieutenant took pity on him one evening and brought him to her favourite bar. She bought him drinks and sat with him on the leafy terrace under the stars. “This is the best assignment I’ve ever had,” she said, clinking her bottle against his. “The worst thing imaginable happened to these people. Did you know less than twenty five percent of the colonists escaped?”

He admitted he’d known that fact. He knew a lot about Mindoir. He’d read about it on the _Normandy_. And yet the planet was nothing like he’d expected.

“This terrible thing happens, but they come back. They’re here because they love being on the frontier, they love the wilderness, they love being a part of a community that they’ve chosen, not just because they were born here. They’re colonists, Alenko, and colonists are a breed apart.”

Kaidan had to agree.

The Lieutenant studied him, curious. “Have you been to the museum?” she asked. “It’s in Domocus. You should go.” And she wouldn’t be pushed on the issue.

The next day, instead of reaffirming that Mindoir’s bunkers were well cared for and as secure as anything the Alliance could install, Kaidan took a tram towards the lowlands. Domocus had been one of the earliest settlements and had been razed by the batarians. The land was still good, and so when the population was large enough it had been rebuilt, but it was still far from a main settlement. It struck Kaidan as a strange place for a museum until he saw the building. It was a red brick town hall, like the kind one might have seen in an ancient Earth city. Along each wall the bricks were charred in places, black scars from the slaver’s fires that had once razed this town to the ground.  

It’s all blue skies and high fires. The phrase had turned out to be Mindoir’s unofficial motto. Something people said to console one another, to celebrate good fortune, or just to pass the time of day.

Inside the museum, a VI greeted him, walking him through the dark rooms and talking about the exhibits. In the first room, there was a video of red haired man wearing the robes of a lawyer. He argued passionately for the rights of farmer cooperatives. “Alan Shepard was one of the principle founders of Mindoir. A lawyer by trade, Alan was instrumental in securing land rights independent of nation claims or commercial interests,” the VI told him. “Many people incorrectly say that Alan Shepard was the first human on Mindoir. Although he and his wife Bridget were among what is colloquially known as the ‘First Droppers’, they were actually on the second ship to reach Mindoir.”

There were many pictures of the land when it had been untouched. There were pictures of the people who were settling the frontier. Kaidan found himself thinking about Alec Ryder and his insane six hundred year flight. When Ryder had headed off through that relay, decades ago, Mindoir had been the frontier. Ryder was still searching for that, still hunting for the perfect blue sky. The Mindoirans knew that the fire was the cost of the sky.

In another part of the museum, they’d blown up a picture and papered it across a whole wall. It showed Alan Shepard and a dark haired, dark eyed woman sitting beside him. The pair were looking up at the photographer, laughing, a fire burning between the lens and the couple. On the woman’s knee sat a baby. “Alan Shepard, his wife Bridget, and their daughter Catherine, on the 2158 Landing Day celebrations,” the VI told him. She began a spiel about Landing Day, this room was intended to educate the visitor about this Mindoiran tradition. More fire. Kaidan stood in front of the larger than life photograph and stared into the eyes of Alan and Bridget.

The next room was dedicated to the batarians. Kaidan listened to the first-hand accounts of the event. He watched the clips of the news he’d seen many times before. He found a single picture of a lanky teenaged girl, glaring out at the camera from a small group of refugees. He told the VI he didn’t need to hear the girl’s name, or learn about what she did next. As he made to leave the room, the VI flickered in front of him. “My appearance and voice is based on Kim Lu, an engineer who gave her life to give the colonists of Mindoir more time.”

He listened to this echo of a dead woman, and listened to the final call of the engineer who had barred herself in a communication tower. “Mayday Mayday Mayday this is the human colony Mindoir signalling all ships in the area, we are under attack, heavy attack, batarians are – Mayday Mayday Mayday this is the human colony Mindoir.”

“Did Shepard see this?” he asked the VI, looking around the room, the stark photographs, the twisted hulks of wreckage.

“Commander Shepard often visited Mindoir,” the VI said.

“But did she ever see this room?”

The VI paused, before replying, “Commander Shepard often visited Mindoir.”

Kaidan left the cool dark of the museum and stepped out into the sunlight. The people here were less concerned with the tourists, they simply lived on this world. This museum was not for the visitors, but for them, so that they remembered their history. The citizens of Domocus barely gave the off-duty marine a second glance, so he was free to walk the streets back to the tram slowly, trying to understand the quiet that had settled in his heart.

When he returned to Crystal River he spent the evening writing his report and headed to the bar for dinner. The pair of asari were there, and one of them smiled at him in recognition. He nodded back to her, ordered his meal – free, again – and sat back with a beer, listening to the locals talk to their guests.

One of the asari said, “Did any of you know Shepard?” and the squeeze in his chest was not as tight as it might have once been.

The bartender glanced at him, then turned his attention to the asari. “I never met the Shepards, I’m post-raid. Dan there,” and he nodded to a thin, older man at the far end of the bar, “still looks after their cattle though.”

“Really?” the asari asked, her enthusiasm made the bartender smile.

“Yep, and he does it all for free too.”

“What for?” the asari asked, at the same time Kaidan said, “Are you sure they’re the same cattle? How could you know?”

Dan simply shrugged. “Shepard can decide that,” he said.

Kaidan frowned a little. “You do know she’s not coming back?” he asked.

Dan just shrugged again, and smiled.

The bartender brought Kaidan a second beer and started telling a story of Shepard. It was a story about a visit she’d paid Mindoir, and it was a story of a woman who was gentler and sweet than Kaidan recognised from his memories. When he’d finished, the asari were beaming, and even the locals were listening with rapt attention.

The people here loved her.

Haltingly, without the right words, Kaidan told one of his own stories. He told a story of Shepard doing everything in her power to settle an issue for some colonists, how she had been frustrated, but persevered, and how proud he’d been of her. The Mindoirans listened with reverence, and thanked him for the tale. The asari were searching the extranet for his name by the time he left the bar.

He heard his story repeated twice before he left the planet. These people worshipped their prodigal daughter, and they carefully curated her memory. He felt as though he had given them a gift.

On his last evening, he walked down to the river and lay on the grassy bank, staring up at the twinkling stars on the inky sky. It was harder and harder to recall the specifics of her. Sometimes he would smell something, a combination of the right soap and genetics, and he would almost be able to recall the scent of her. He could remember the feel of her hand on his chest, but not the exact configuration of the freckles on her back. He remembered the flash of her smile, but sometimes he could no longer hear her laugh.

He missed her deeply. He missed a woman he had known but a few months. The people on Mindoir missed a legend, a child of their land. Her friends missed another version of her, a little more real, but still not the woman he had known.

He wondered who had died in orbit around Alchera. Which version of Shepard was the closest to the truth? Maybe trying to get the measure of her was as futile as trying to count an infinity. All he had was his imperfect recollections. For the first time, his memories of her were no longer quite so painful. As if by fading they’d become more tolerable. One day he might even remember her happily.

Blue skies and high fires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week - Horizon! 
> 
> (Also, no one will care but me, but I took the opportunity to correct a tiny timeline error from Myth Maker in this fic)


	10. Secant-Tangent Theorem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The height of the observer above sea level added to the diameter of the earth, times the height of the observer above sea level again will give you the square of the distance to the Horizon. 
> 
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> On Horizon, things are said, and Kaidan isn't sure he'll ever get far enough away from that planet.

_Commander Alenko,_

_I’m not sure if I should be telling you this. In fact, I’ve written this email more than once. I just keep thinking about how I felt when I heard, and I’d hate to think that anyone had kept it from me._

_There’s a rumour that Cerberus have someone who looks like Shepard, that she’s working out in the Terminus. I heard she was on the Citadel. I don’t know what they’re planning, or why they’re using her face to do it, but I thought you should know._

_I hope Anderson’s treating you well out there,_

_Jane Lupine_

 

Of all the colonies Kaidan had been sent to, Horizon was one of the least pleasant. The people were possessed of a deep dislike of the Alliance, and Kaidan’s limited charm wasn’t quite enough to bring them round. On top of that, their main settlement had been built in a low valley that sheltered them from anything resembling a breeze. Kaidan spent his entire time on Horizon mopping sweat from the back of his neck and wishing for shuttle downdraft to disrupt the humidity.

If it hadn’t been for the now indisputable evidence that colonies were disappearing, Kaidan thought the colonists would have kicked him and his GARDIAN guns off their rock by now.

Given Horizon’s welcoming nature, he couldn’t tell if he appreciated Lilith’s teasing because it was human contact, because he truly liked her, or just because when all was said and done . . . it had been a while.

Jane’s letter, received the day he arrived on Horizon, burned in his mind.

He emerged from his shower rubbing the towel over his unruly hair to find Lilith sitting in the living quarters of the prefab he’d been assigned. She was reading, or pretending to read, a datapad, her gaze tracking him as he paused. “Hey,” he said, for lack of anything else springing to mind.

“Hey, yourself,” she said.

Prefabs tended to be open, with some colonists placing multiple beds in the same ‘bedroom’. This one was no exception, with the bathroom leading straight into the open bedroom, which itself abutted the living quarters, the large doors rolled open to let in the barest hint of a breeze. Kaidan had dressed immediately out of the shower, but his clean shirt was sticking to his damp skin and he was aware of drops of water still rolling down his neck from his hairline. Lilith was studying the damp patches too, with dark eyes.

“Uh,” he let the towel fall into his hands and felt as though he was forging into unknown territory. He rubbed the ragged cotton between his finger and thumb. He was vaguely aware of the possibility that Lilith might want to change the nature of their relationship, and that the new parameters might include physical contact. The thought of Lilith standing close to him, of her skin touching his, sent his brain into shutdown.

Lilith smirked. She sat back on the sofa and crossed her legs, loosely gripping her ankles. “You look good out of armour, Commander Alenko,” she said, and licked her lips.

“Are you coming on to me?” He had to force himself not to wince after he asked it and Lilith’s smirk blossomed into a full grin.

“Yes,” she said emphatically. “And I have been for a while now. So why don’t you go look in that cupboard for some beer and we can chat about these damned alignments?” She tapped the GARDIAN specs on the datapad and waited for him to respond.

So Kaidan got the alcohol, got the food, sat down beside her, and they puzzled out the guns together as the sun set on Horizon. Night was no less humid than day, but it was at least a little cooler, and the Shadow Seas danced in the sky. Between the equations they worked on, he tried to imagine what Lilith might want with him. She might climb onto his lap. Shepard had liked straddling his thighs while he sat, pressing her chest against his and occupying his full attention. He had liked directing her speed with his hands on her hips, and not having to crane his neck down to kiss her.

Lilith was a good handful of inches taller than Shepard.

Before Shepard, another period of his life entirely, he tried to remember what had felt good. Was he more caring or aggressive in bed? Did he like control, subservience or partnership? He had a vague feeling that once he would have known the answer to these questions, but they escaped him now. He remembered a long evening with a tall and slender man that he’d happily conceded dominance to by the end of the night. And he remembered a blonde woman who had liked every kiss to be traded fairly. But when he tried to think of them he found himself picturing Shepard sitting on the edge of the bed, her bare skin patched with medigel and bruises, turning to look back over her shoulder at him.

Maybe Lilith was waiting for him to make the first move. That fitted with a certain aesthetic, didn’t it? The brave Alliance soldier seducing the civilian colony engineer? Once upon a time, years ago, he had been confident that he could attract a willing partner. It was as though he was trying to call on muscles that had long since withered away.

He watched Lilith as she puzzled out a particularly tricky shield harmonic. There wasn’t much about her that could remind him of Shepard. Taller, darker, a little softer without the biotic metabolism to whittle away her energy. Lilith didn’t have Shepard’s caustic sense of humour, nor did she have Shepard’s talent for seeing straight through people, but she was still funny and she was still clever. He knew he liked that at least.

She glanced over at him and he was caught in his contemplation. He smiled wanly.

“You’re not listening to a thing I’m saying,” she chided, and set the datapad aside.

It was the opening notes to a song, and he could remember parts of it, even if he hadn’t heard the whole piece for some time. Lilith’s gaze focussed on his mouth.

“I haven’t done this for a while,” he managed.

“And we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” she promised, leaning forward to kiss him. Her kiss was cool from the iced beer she’d been drinking, her lips a little chapped, and she placed her hand on the back of his neck to hold him in place even though he sat entirely unmoving, hands in his lap.

_Shepard sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, and he reached out his fingers to brush her bare back. She glanced back over her shoulder at him, a smile lingering on her sad face. “We could just leave,” she whispered._

_Sprawled on his back, entirely exhausted, he couldn’t quite follow her line of thought._

_“We could get on a shuttle, sell our talents to the highest bidder, and live very happily on the spoils.” She injected a seductive purr into her tone, and he felt strangely convinced of her seriousness. She leaned over, bracing her hands on either side of his shoulders, and held herself above him. So close to him, she couldn’t hide the hope on her face._

_“That will be a little difficult after we board the_ Normandy _tomorrow,” he said, as gently as he could, trailing his fingers up her arm._

_“You don’t want to roam the stars with me?” she whispered, a little hurt creeping into her tone even as she climbed over him, straddling his hips._

_Kaidan sat up, catching her by the waist and pulling her closer. She relinquished the lead gratefully, letting him cradle her close to him. She rested her palms on his shoulders and bit her lip. “You’d rather be a mercenary than an Alliance officer?” he asked._

_“If it meant I could do this every night,” she whispered._

_He could hardly picture it, except to think that free of any restraints, she might just be the ruin of the galaxy, and he’d be trapped in her orbit, consumed by lust._

_“And who would stop the Reapers?” he teased, leaning in to kiss her, and she responded readily, the silliness forgotten, twisting her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck._

Lilith’s thumb brushed the damp curls at the back of his neck and he jerked backwards, snatching himself out of her reach. He barely had time to process her startled expression, launching from his seat and pacing the floor. He still felt Shepard’s hand, tangling her fingers in his hair like she had so often done, like she was trying to weave herself into him. She had succeeded. She was so much a part of the fabric of him that he couldn’t tolerate another’s hands on his skin. What the hell did Cerberus want with her face? He stopped at the window, breathing heavily.

“Kaidan, I’m sorry,” Lilith was up too, keeping a respectful distance. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

He shook his head, ran his hand over the nape of his neck to convince himself there was no hand there.

_Shepard looked back at him over her shoulder, a sad smile on her face._

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Lilith,” he murmured. “It’s not you. I . . . I lost someone.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Lilith swore at herself and when he looked at she was hanging her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. She grimaced at him. “I’m so sorry, Kaidan, if I’d known . . .”

“No, I . . .” He balled his fists, unclenched them, and forced himself to breathe slowly. He supposed it wasn’t a ringing endorsement of his social skills if the first kiss in two years was making him hyperventilate. “I should have moved on,” he muttered.

Lilith shook her head and beckoned him back to the sofa. “That’s not how grief works,” she said firmly. “Come here, I won’t bite.” She watched him while he slowly collected himself and returned to his seat, keeping a respectful distance from him this time. “You need time, Kaidan.”

“I’ve had time.”

“Well, clearly not enough.” Lilith picked up one of the discarded datapads and gave him a smile. “Look, no hard feelings, okay?”

Lilith was as good as her word, and remained her cheerful self even as the colonists continued to gripe about his presence. She still kept him company in the evenings, and her help on the GARDIANs kept him from going insane as the guns stubbornly refused to operate.

Hackett requested a report from him, his letter more terse than usual. Kaidan forwarded his drafts along, covering the data packet with a quick letter about the difficulties they were running into getting the towers to play nicely with Horizon’s power grid. He received no response and wondered why Hackett had wanted the news so urgently.

If Hackett knew anything, he would have said. Kaidan told himself that when an extranet news alert said someone purporting to be Commander Shepard had destroyed a prison facility.

He’d been on the planet a few weeks when the Collectors hit.

 

His tongue could still taste the metallic sting of the stasis field and his head thumped with every step forward. Horizon’s ever present heavy atmosphere felt like it was trying to choke him. The team at the spaceport were picking over the Collector corpses, a short krogan was grunting something at . . . a turian.

Kaidan frowned. It was not entirely unheard of for a krogan and turian to work together, especially in a mercenary squad, but the turian was . . . it was Garrus. Scarred, badly so, but definitely Garrus. He hesitated, tightening his grip on his rifle.

A woman jogged down from the GARDIAN platform, something about her light step making him hesitate. She was on the receiving end of one of Lilith’s colleagues’ ire. She turned to confront the man, revealing a red stripe on the right arm of her armour, and Kaidan could hear his heart beating in his chest.

The woman paused mid explanation, reaching her hand up to her forehead, pushing back some of her short hair in impatience. It was so familiar he couldn’t understand why he’d forgotten it.

The woman looked like Shepard. Garrus threw her a look, like he would have looked at Shepard, frustrated by Delan’s argument. _The woman looked like Shepard._ She wore N7 armour and as Kaidan drew closer he could hear her voice.

“Sure, I remember you,” Delan was saying. The woman exhaled in one big puff of breath, planting her hands on her hips as she listened, and Kaidan holstered his weapon, approaching slowly. “You’re some type of big Alliance hero.”

The krogan spotted him, drawing back its lips to reveal rows of teeth, so Kaidan spoke. “Commander Shepard.”

She looked at him, her lips parting in surprise, relief, something else that he hoped he wasn’t getting a bad read on, and she took a step toward him before arresting herself.

“Captain of the Normandy. The first human Spectre. Saviour of the Citadel.” He came to a stop, he could go on, but Delan was already impatient with him, and Shepard was staring at him. Was it really her? Or was his memory so flawed? There was something different in her face, an inhuman amount of perfection perhaps, like she’d been plucked from one of those ridiculous posters. She was missing the scar on her cheek, and the tiny silvery sliver on her lip that was only noticeable when you were close, or when he ran his tongue over the skin. Freckles were gone, mismatched with his memory, and strangest of all, she had chopped off most of her hair. It ended just beneath her ears now, so different from her usual bun.

Why was that strange to him?

Because in every memory and fantasy he’d played with, turning over in his mind, her hair had remained long.

Shepard took two running steps towards him and flung her arms around his neck, their kinetic shields fizzing slightly as they embraced. He couldn’t help himself from returning the hold, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck. He heard her take a shuddering breath, like she was about to cry, and he held tighter. The action made him inhale and he’d be damned but it smelled so like her.

It was the smell that made him push her back. She sniffed heavily, staring up at something a little above his head, and he could see tears gathering in her eyes.

She was fighting the tears? _She_ was? Damn her!

He looked to Garrus and the turian looked away. The krogan seemed bored of the exchange already. “I thought you were dead.” He could barely look at her. “We all did. Most of us, I guess,” he looked to Garrus again. Garrus was trying to hustle the krogan away.

She pressed the heels of her palms against her cheeks and sniffed again, pulling back a little more control. “It’s been too long,” she murmured, “how’ve you been?”

“How have I -” he cut himself off, staring at her. She realised she’d made an error and opened her mouth. He forged on, the words bubbling up faster than hers, “Is that all you have to say? You show up after _two years_ and just act like _nothing_ happened?”

He was hurting her, if the sharp intake of breath was anything to go by. She was uncertain of him, and Garrus made a clicking noise with his mandibles, disapproving.

“I thought we had something, Shepard,”

_She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and looked back over her shoulder, smiling._

“I loved you,” he spat it, and she reacted like it was a slap, flinching from him.

“I’m sorry, Kaidan,” her voice rasped, shaking with the exhaustion of a hard fight, maybe something more. He remembered how she could crash sometimes after a tough fight, her biotics sapping every kilojoule of her energy reserves. He’d taken to carrying extra rations with him on their last days on the _Normandy_ , knowing how awkward it was to ask for extra food. He wasn’t sure why, of all things, this was what she got caught up on regarding her biotics.

“Thinking you were dead tore me apart. How could you put me through that?”

Her face crumpled, and suddenly he saw her. The perfect skin suddenly looked real, and the way she crossed her arms over her waist, clinging to herself, that was something no one could have picked up from watching her promo vids. That was her.

The questions kept pouring out of him, each one louder, hammering her shields because he wanted her to crack. He wanted her to cry, to lie curled up on a bed unable to breathe it hurt so much. He wanted her to be lost, to have nothing, miss him as badly as he’d missed her.

“It wasn’t my choice,” she managed, her voice strained and, yes, hurt. “I was in some kind of . . . coma . . . while Cerberus rebuilt me. Kaidan, I wanted-”

“You’re with Cerberus now,” he interrupted _. You’d rather be a mercenary than an Alliance officer._

She flinched again, and Garrus stepped in to try and defend her. The krogan had circled, keeping Kaidan fixed in his right eye, and Kaidan had no doubt the krogan would attack if he tried to make a move on Shepard.

That was stupid. Shepard’s weaknesses had never been vulnerable to biotic throw or a well-aimed pistol. She was disarmed by her affection.

“Our colonies are disappearing. The Alliance turned its back on them. Cerberus is the only group willing to do something about it!” She was desperate now, stung by his response, tired from the fight, frightened for her people.

“You can’t really believe that,” he turned his attention from the krogan back to her. “We both know what Cerberus is like. What they’re capable of.” The things they’d seen in Cerberus bases still sometimes presented themselves in his nightmares.

She hung her head and seemed smaller than he’d ever seen her.

This was the way you destroyed the great Commander Shepard. You accused her of harm, of disloyalty. You deprived her of the things she valued most, family, friendship . . . trust. The krogan was right to expect an attack, he just couldn’t see the knife Kaidan intended to slide into her back. “You turned your back on everything we believed in. You betrayed the Alliance. You betrayed me.”

Her lips parted, like she felt the knife enter her heart, and for a moment, Kaidan felt a flicker of doubt. The krogan growled.

“Kaidan . . .” she sounded child-like, pleading, “You know me. You know I’d only do this for the right reason.”

“I thought I knew you. I met a lot of people over the past couple of years who thought they knew you, Shepard.”

“Kaidan,” Garrus snapped, and the krogan thumped his chest.

Shepard lifted her hand to stop them. She took a step closer to him, “The Collectors are targeting _human_ colonies,” she punctuated her words with a little shake of the fist she clenched at her thigh. “They’re working _with_ the Reapers. I’m _still_ fighting. But why don’t we talk about what this is _really_ about, huh?”

Yes. He wanted her angry, he wanted her to show a little of that persuasion, to use her charm to fight back. He wanted the weapons put aside, wanted her to really fight him, tooth and claw. “And what do you think that is?” he dropped his voice.

“You want rules, Kaidan, you want nice, clean living,” she was drawing closer again, a tilt to her shoulders that was deliberate, exposing the side of her neck. Kiss her or kill her, both felt equally suicidal. “You want me to play nice and submit to Hackett-”

Hackett fucking knew, the rage that flashed inside him caught her offguard and she faltered.

“But for _what_ , Kaidan?” she rasped, “Cerberus sure as hell isn’t perfect and sure as hell isn’t my first choice, but my first choice didn’t want me!” She was shouting now, and the volume of her words washed over him, a boiling wave that scoured his skin. He didn’t much care about the colonists on the periphery of his vision, for Garrus’ anxious looks toward them, for the krogan still ready to charge him. The krogan wasn’t sure how Shepard was being hurt, but he wasn’t blind.

“I’d like to believe you,” he spat, “But what’s to say Cerberus isn’t using the threat of the Reapers to pull on your strings? We all know you come running to heel the moment someone threatens some far-out colony. Guess that’s why we’re here, after all.” He held his arms out to encompass this wretched planet, and the two of them standing only an arm’s span away from one another.

Her brows furrowed and the tears that were still threatening to spill out from blue eyes had the distinct hint of fury to them. “You’re letting how you feel about their history get in the way of the facts,” her words were flat, controlled, all hint of her accent carefully pruned away.

The words she didn’t say was that he was letting his feelings about her get in the way. She pulled herself together, visibly reconstructing the great Commander Shepard with a lift of her head, squaring her shoulders, relaxing her jaw, and finally donning the careful mask of neutrality. Just before it fell into place she met his gaze directly and softened the curve of her lips into a smile. It was as though she had tugged on a string tied around his waist, just the tiniest pull to get him off balance, and just as he felt he could fall into her and he would know _exactly_ what she would want with him, the smile was gone and Commander Shepard was unknowable again. It was a deliberate attack on his defences.

“I could use someone like you in my crew, Kaidan,” she said, and both the krogan and Garrus stared at her. “It’ll be just like old times.”

Well he’d tried to hurt her, hadn’t her? Her cool suggestion was only fair play in return. “No. It won’t.” She was studying him, and despite it all, she had wanted him to say ‘yes’. “I’ll never work for Cerberus,” he offered, the only thing he could say in explanation.

Her mask didn’t falter.

“Goodbye, Shepard,” he said. That was something he’d said more than once over the last two years.

“Goodbye, Kaidan,” she said, and collected her crew, heading for the shuttlepad.

She was going to walk away from him, disappear into the stars. “Be careful,” he called after her, his own voice hitching a little, and she acknowledged him with a lift of her hand as a Cerberus stamped shuttle descended from the clouds.

 

“You knew!”

Hackett’s audio was unclear over all the distance but Kaidan was sure he heard the Admiral curse. He clenched his fists on the windowsill and braced himself against the entirely absent breeze on Horizon.

“It was a need to know situation,” Hackett said at last in his earpiece. “I wanted to be sure, first.”

Kaidan could taste blood on his tongue. “And are you ‘sure’ now?” he bit out.

“You’ve met her,” Hackett sounded a little uncertain. “What do you think?”

He thought of her carefully reassembling her image, giving him one last look at the person she could be before she walled that openness off from him. “Oh it’s her alright,” he said darkly.

“I thought so,” Hackett confessed. “Her communications, her actions, she’s still Shepard. The Council re-instated her Spectre access. I’ll authorise you to give her any support you think is best.”

He hesitated. “Can I get some parameters on that, sir?”

Hackett didn’t respond for a moment. Kaidan wondered if the signal had decayed. “I don’t have time to hold your hand, Commander,” Hackett said at last. “Whatever you think is best.”

 

“You fucking knew,” he swore in the privacy of his cabin.

On his terminal’s screen the quarian stopped tinkering with her omnitool and approached the camera, taking her seat and clasping her hands together. “I wanted to tell you,” Tali said, leaning a little closer.

“Then why the hell didn’t you!”

“Because it was a classified mission,” Tali said heavily. “I couldn’t, Kaidan. I wanted to. But I couldn’t.” She tilted her head a little. “I’m surprised _you’ve_ told _me_ , actually.”

He faltered in his pacing. Without anger he felt dread beginning to surface from his heart. “Bullshit,” he snapped, spinning to face her. She flinched. “You knew how much she meant to me, Tali.”

“Did I?” Tali snapped back. “I don’t think you ever told me anything, Kaidan. But I guessed a whole lot. I know what you meant to her, though, because she _did_ tell me, and I didn’t think it was my place to interfere.”

“Well, fuck you,” he muttered, ending the call.

 

“Kaidan!” The vidcall was blurred but he only knew so many krogan. He took a seat at his terminal and nodded while slurping down some of his noodles.

“Hey, Wrex,” he managed after he chewed the first mouthful. There were half a dozen datapads precariously piled up on his desk and he carefully navigated them to readjust the camera settings.

Wrex grinned at him. “You’ll never guess who walked into my throne room today,” the krogan burbled.

Shit. He hesitated, stabbing his chopsticks into the broth. “Was it a certain Commander we once knew?” he ventured.

Wrex’s grin grew even toothier and he slapped his palms together, laughing as he rubbed his gloved claws. “She looks good, Kaidan. Have you seen her?”

“Yes,” he admitted, steeling himself for anger that didn’t come.

Wrex started chatting, talking about Shepard’s adventures on the krogan homeworld. “Only Shepard would land on Tuchanka being followed by a salarian,” he chortled, and he mentioned that he’d managed to convince her to stay long enough for drink and food. “Not sure how much good it did her,” Wrex noted thoughtfully.

“You’re not upset I didn’t give you a heads up?” Kaidan asked.

Wrex blinked. “Why would I be? Heh. I keep forgetting what a short-lived species you are. What are you up to at the moment, Kaidan?”

That was highly classified, and not suitable for a discussion with the krogan. Kaidan set his bowl aside and rubbed his forehead where the beginnings of a migraine had been threatening for the last two days. “I’m putting together a biotic task force for Hackett. These Collectors have got us worried.”

“You and me both,” Wrex grunted. He squinted into the camera. “You’re looking rough, when did you last sleep?”

 

The return of Commander Shepard was played down, with no public acknowledgement of the ‘K.I.A’ being revoked from her file. By contrast he was given a promotion with some fanfare, and then promptly kicked back out to the Terminus to train his squad up.

He’d never taken the news-alert for her name off his omnitool, even in the two years when all it spat up was another memorial plaza being erected. Nowadays it was oddly silent, as though any news of Shepard was being quietly suppressed.

Not long after he’d left Horizon he’d sent her a letter. It had seemed safest. And she’d never responded.

That didn’t surprise him when he reread his attempted apology. He and his team were on Elysium when his omnitool gave him a short tap on his wrist. It was the alert pattern for Shepard, but not a news article.

He checked that evening, and found a data packet containing detailed information on a Cerberus facility called Teltin. The data was . . . incriminating, and ruthlessly collated together with Shepard’s trademark thoroughness. It had been sent directly to his ID codes, so only he could decode the data. _For the Alliance_ , the wrapper proclaimed. He forwarded the entire thing to Hackett, supplementing it with his own understand of the data.

 _She needs a secured drop point for this kind of data_ , he added in his own wrapper. _If she’s trying everything through my ID codes we risk losing a packet if I’m out of comm buoy range._

 

He was nearly asleep in his pod on the _Tokyo_ when the letter arrived. Again the gentle two tap on his wrist that meant Shepard.

_Kaidan,_

_I hope you’re okay. We’ve just picked up Tali, and she’s joined the crew. I figure that makes me nearly forgivable. ‘Two out of five crewmembers would return’._

_I’ve had a lot of time to think about what you said. And a lot of time to get to know my benefactors._

_I was wrong. Okay? I’m in over my head, is that what you wanted me to say? I feel like I have a leash around my neck and every time I think about leaving, the Illusive Man gives it a little pull to bring me to heel. What am I supposed to do? Let these people die? You had the Alliance’s support for two years and what did you do to protect them?_

_Tali says she hasn’t spoken to you in months. That you had a fight with her. I don’t give a damn what you think about me but she doesn’t deserve that._

He wished that the ever present threat of _Tokyo_ retrofit had finally manifested. He wanted to be in a bed, not a sleeping pod, and he wanted to toss and turn.

She was _alive_. On the other side of the galaxy, maybe, angry and hurt, but she was alive. It was just like her to be more pissed off about what he’d done to Tali than what he’d done to her.

The knowledge rested heavy on his chest.

 

He set up a call with Tali, which she took on Illium by the looks of the skyscraper behind her. The golden sunlight glinted off her visor. “Hello,” she said cautiously.

“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t the opening he’d intended, but he couldn’t help it, smiling at her familiar outline. “I was a dick, okay?”

“Yes.” Tali folded her arms, but tone sounded amused. “You were.” She lifted one finger. “But I’ll allow that you were probably very upset.”

“I don’t think that counts.”

Tali shrugged. “I’m in a forgiving mood,” she said, turning to consider the skyline behind her.

“What’s up, Tali?”

She didn’t reply straight away, but when she did she turned to face him. “I got a letter from home. I think . . . I think I’m in trouble. I haven’t told Shepard yet.”

“Tell her,” Kaidan said firmly. When Tali tilted her head in question he continued, “She’ll want to help you.”

“I miss you,” Tali admitted. “Your counterpart here is . . . missing some of your people skills.”

“Ha. They must be pretty poor.”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“Not yet.”

Tali reached up to adjust her veil. “Talk to her. Soon, Kaidan.”

 

The next message he received from her was delayed by a mission. It arrived with a dump of other messages and orders when he allowed his ID codes to reconnect with the comm buoys. The medgel patch on his arm itched and he had more than a dozen urgent items to attend to, so he waited until he was on the transport to Arcturus before opening it. By that point he’d read Hackett’s brief missive that Shepard had reported the Collector base destroyed. He settled himself into one of the shuttle’s seats, called up his omnitool, and started to read.

_Kaidan. I left once without saying goodbye. I couldn’t do it again. I’ve set this message to deliver if we don’t return from the Omega Four relay in ten hours. It doesn’t give me much wriggle room, but I guess I just want you to have it no matter what. Hell, maybe I won’t even put the delay on it._

_I don’t want to die again. I certainly don’t want to lose anyone else on this ship. They’re good people. I sent Hackett a list of their names, people I want remembered, people who tried to make a difference. They deserve to have their names known._

_But if this really is a suicide mission, I want one favour from you, and I know I’ve no right to ask, but there’s no one else I can ask. Please remember me. I want at least one person in the galaxy to remember me. I need someone to know I hated the taste of artificial strawberries and I cried every time I watched Fleet and Flotilla and I was a person and not just a poster. Please remember me, Kaidan. And please remember me fondly._

_I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I never meant to hurt you. I died once, and I know what it’s like to die without saying goodbye._

_So . . . goodbye._

 

He had composed and deleted a dozen replies before reaching Arcturus, and the version he sent was short.

_I’ll remember more than that. I’m glad you’re safe._

 

Not a month later he received a warning from Tali. Shepard had put all non-Alliance personnel off the ship, warning those who remained that they’d face Alliance custody. And then she’d gone off on one final mission for Hackett.

 

 

“What do you think of Commander Shepard?”

The wind carried the words down to Kaidan as he climbed the dunes back up to his parents’ house. He hadn’t forgotten that his mother was bringing friends over that afternoon, but he hadn’t thought they’d arrive before he left. He lingered on the dunes, the tall grass whipping against his thighs and the wind prickling his wet skin to gooseflesh.

“I don’t understand,” his mother tried to change the conversation, but her friends weren’t having any of it.

“I saw some footage of her the other day, from her arrest.”

“How could anyone kill that many people?”

“Well, they were batarians, Elle.”

“I don’t think that matters,” his mother snapped, and Kaidan had heard enough. He climbed the dune into view of the deck and waved at the group sitting bundled up against the pacific winds.

“You must be cold,” stated Elle, staring at him in his swimming trunks.

He grinned at her, and couldn’t resist vaulting over the deck rail to get inside. “The water’s fine,” he said, and sauntered into the blessed warmth inside. After a quick shower, he dressed, collecting up his bag from the newly made bed. The opinions of some of Victoria’s more sheltered residents shouldn’t eat at him, but they did. These were the people that the Alliance brass would try to satisfy. These were the people that could never understand the choice she’d made.

The Alliance had finally publicised something about her, but it was her surrender. For months, they played the images of her walking with her hands cuffed behind her back, entirely submissive to the helmeted marines around her. It was a well-choreographed perp walk, a show of force that the Alliance wanted everyone to see.

By the time he left his room his mother had detached herself from the group on the deck and was fixing a fresh round of snacks for them in the kitchen. She kissed his cheek when he stopped to give her a hug. “How long will you be?”

“I don’t know, these things take time, but I’ll probably be sent out on a mission after. I’ll stop by if I can,” he promised, giving her a short hug and standing back to better steal a carrot stick.

“Okay,” she seemed reluctant to let go of his arm. “Are you going to say goodbye to your father? I think he’s in the den.”

Kaidan was. He’d gotten into the habit of saying goodbye. Sure enough, his father was secluded away from their guests with a mug of coffee and a good book. He glanced up when Kaidan entered. “Is that you off to the trial?” he asked.

Kaidan nodded, taking the opportunity to stare out at the grey ocean surf crashing against the rocks outside of the window. “I was just saying I might be posted out afterwards, so if I don’t see you for a while . . .”

“Sure,” his father nodded, folding his book over his index finger. “I hope your friend’s okay, Kaidan. She seemed like a good woman.”

“The best,” he agreed.

His father joined him, staring out at the ocean wave. “And these . . . Reapers,” his father said quietly. “You’re worried about them?”

Kaidan took a deep breath. “Yes. When it happens . . .”

His father put his hand on Kaidan’s shoulder. “You’d better go and rescue your Commander from the Alliance bureaucracy then,” he said. “Take care of yourself out there.”

Kaidan smiled and nodded. “You too,” he said.

 

He spent over a week at Alliance HQ waiting to be called for the evidentiary hearing, enjoying the food and soft beds, and receiving word that his next posting would be with Admiral Anderson on the _Normandy_. The retrofitted ship truly was remarkable. He couldn’t help admiring the XO’s suite on his tour. A bed like that was a luxury on any spaceship.

Specialist Traynor concluded his debriefing by walking him back down the corridors to HQ. “Have you given your evidence yet?” she asked innocently as he paused to buy a coffee at a vendor. “Ooh, yes please,” she grinned when he offered to get her one too.

“Not yet. I don’t know when.” He took a filter coffee with milk, she went for something packed with sugar, creamer and artificial flavours.

“Hmm.” Traynor accepted the mug and inhaled the aroma, beaming. “This isn’t quite as good as the little shop on my street, but it’ll do.”

“I’m glad the Alliance keeps you satisfied, Specialist,” he teased.

Traynor rolled her eyes and followed him. “Do you ever read the Sky Record?” When he shook his head with a mouthful of coffee she continued. “It’s a Mindoir-owned news site. They cover a lot of stories that wouldn’t interest the homeworlds. They had an interesting piece on Shepard this week. It’s been the talk of the colonies.”

He led them onto the promenade and paused to rest the hot cup on the railing, turning to face Traynor’s curious expression head on. “If they’re Mindoir-based I can’t imagine they have much to say against Shepard.”

“Don’t be too sure.” Traynor folded her arms on the rail and looked out over the city. “She destroyed a colony after all.” She hesitated, “But . . . you’d be right if you thought this piece mostly supported her. They mentioned you too. Said you were a close friend of hers.”

Kaidan pushed his fingertips into the raises of the coffee cup, feeling the heat beneath his skin. It built until it burned and he released the cup, letting it balance on the rail.

“You were on Horizon, weren’t you?” Traynor asked, ducking her head to catch his gaze. “My parents spoke about you. You saved their lives.”

Whenever he heard the name of that blasted planet he could feel his skin crawling. “I had help,” he said, and picked up his coffee again. “ _Her_ help.”

“Still,” Traynor smiled at him.

“Can I ask you something, Specialist?”

“Of course, Major?”

“What on earth possessed you to build on the muggiest valley in the galaxy?”

Traynor’s laugh was loud and delighted. Kaidan spotted Admiral Anderson marching towards them and drew to a stop, Traynor throwing a salute that was so enthusiastic she nearly gave herself a concussion.

“Kaidan!” Anderson greeted him exuberantly, slapping him on the arm. “Steven will be sorry to have missed you, he just finished his statement. He’ll catch you another time, I’m sure.” Anderson hesitated, his attention drawn by the stiff woman on Kaidan’s left. “At ease, Specialist. How did you find the _Normandy_ , Alenko?”

“She’s always been a beautiful ship, sir. And the Specialist’s team has done a wonderful job.”

“I agree, well done,” Anderson added, nodding to Traynor. There was a moment where the young woman didn’t quite understand she’d been dismissed until it dawned upon her and she threw another salute, nearly spilling her coffee as she raced away. Kaidan had to stifle his laughter. Anderson continued with him along the path, squinting slightly in the setting sun. “Have you had dinner yet? Can I tempt you out on the town?”

“I could be tempted,” Kaidan admitted.

A frown fell upon Anderson’s face as they took a diversion down into the city. “Kaidan. Can I ask you something?” he said as they boarded the tram to Granville.

Kaidan looped his arm around the upstanding rail and let his weight rock with the motion of the tram. They were nearly alone in the carriage, an older couple sitting down near the front were their closest neighbours. “Ask away,” he said.

“Hackett . . . said something that gave me pause for thought,” Anderson began carefully. “What, exactly, is the nature of your relationship with Shepard?”

Kaidan looked at him so quick he felt himself pull a muscle in his neck. Anderson seemed profoundly uncomfortable, his mouth twisted downwards. Kaidan found himself trying not to laugh again. “Are you telling me you don’t know?” he asked.

Anderson blinked a few times. “How long has it been going on?”

“Well,” it was Kaidan’s turn to hesitate. “It’s not anymore, but we were close for a while.”

“When did it start?” Anderson seemed to be struggling to come to terms with the whole idea and Kaidan congratulated himself on his poker face.

“Do you really want to know, sir?”

“I suppose not,” Anderson looked a little green. Suddenly he stood a little straighter. “When Steven and I met you on the Citadel, in the Hilton . . .”

Kaidan made a face and nodded.

Truly perturbed now, Anderson simply said, “I see.”

“You really didn’t know?” Kaidan asked.

“No.” Anderson thought about it a moment. “Kaidan, feel free to never speak of this again.”

“Sir, I’ve already taken the liberty of ordering the first round,” he assured the Admiral.

 

They all stripped down in the cargo hold, him, James and Shepard, shimmying out of their BDUs and wriggling into the form-fitting undersuits. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her tying her hair back in a loose ponytail, the zipper of her suit not up past the small of her back yet. He reached over to zip her in, brushing the last dark strands out of the way and coaxing the fabric to meld together with a pinch of his fingers at the nape of her neck. She stood straight and then turned to help him with his suit, her eyes widening as she saw he was sorted.

“Out of practice, I guess,” she murmured, running her fingers along her neckline. He handed her a gauntlet and she pulled it on. Kaidan rummaged through his kit and grabbed a silver MRE stamped with the Eezo symbol. He shoved it at her and she blinked a few times before unwrapping the bar and starting to chew.

“The more things change,” he scolded her, fastening his chest plate.

She scowled with her stuffed mouth.

“What kind of loadout you want?” Vega called from the armoury.

Kaidan grinned a little. “If there’s a Carnifex in there she’ll take it. I’ll have a sidearm and an Avenger if one’s going.”

Shepard managed to swallow her mouthful and narrowed her eyes at him, defiantly taking another bite as she twisted one foot into her boot.

 

As the bot grabbed him by the neck he was sure he heard Shepard scream, but that couldn’t have been right. He’d scanned the perimeter for hostiles, he’d been sure she was safe, could he have missed something?

Pain radiated through the back of his skull, fire burning behind his eyes. He heard Shepard’s screams again, and god he hoped she was safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this, two chapters in one weekend? Did I have an easy weekend you ask? Yes, yes I did.


	11. Limit Cycle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A closed trajectory in phase space that, as time approaches infinity, other loops will spiral towards and into. 
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________  
> Kaidan cannot help but be pulled into her orbit once more.

Somehow he was lucky enough for Shepard to miss breakfast twice. She entered his hospital room at a brisk clip and seemed to crash against an invisible barrier when she saw him sitting up and sipping on his coffee.

“Hey,” he said, trying to shuffle back a little against the pillows. His first sedation had been brutal, and he’d felt clumsy and disconnected for days. The second surgery had just made him groggy. Finally it felt as though his body was beginning to listen to his mind again, even if he was grateful for the bed holding him upright.

Shepard drifted to a stop at the foot of his bed, her fists clenching against her thighs. Yesterday her visit had been hurried, with an appointment with Udina pressing on her mind. He’d got the impression she had come to visit him straight from the _Normandy_. Today she seemed a little less certain of herself, and perhaps of him too. She bit her lip, her brow furrowing deeply, and she looked as though she was fighting back tears.

“Hey, I didn’t think I was that ugly,” he said, and she looked down to mask the complete lack of a smile on her face. He missed her smiles. “Okay, bad joke,” he said softly, and she screwed her eyes shut. “Shep, I’m okay. You know I’m okay.” With a little bit of effort, he sat forward, drawing his knees up on the mattress and resting his arms on them. “Come on . . . look at me.”

It seemed to take her a very long time to tear her gaze up from the floor, and when she did, there was a little bead of red blood in the middle of her full bottom lip, but she was looking him in the eye with that glassy calm he’d seen her assume so many times.

“We’re heading out again,” she said, her voice steady and dull. “Sur’Kesh, would you believe? Always wanted to visit there.”

She seemed adrift. Losing control in a way he’d never seen her before. This was the face of someone who’d cut her name out of her life to keep from being reminded of the pain, who had studied every documented type of biotic field to keep herself from ever being weaponless, and who was facing an enemy that she finally couldn’t sweet talk her way around. She looked as though her skin was so thinly stretched over all the promises she was trying to keep that she’d split apart at the first hard knock.

“Send me a postcard,” he said, and there was barely a flicker behind her eyes.

“Yeah, well . . .” She palmed the footer of the bed, like her hands were the only part of her that were still trying to catch at solid ground. “I’ll see you around.”

“Shepard. Sit.” He nearly barked the order, like she was one of his rookies in need of stabilisation, and she blinked, frowning just a little. “Come on, sit down, and talk to me,” he said, pointing to the chairs by the window. “Hell, I’ll even buy you a coffee,” he added, while Shepard stared blankly at the seats he’d indicated.

“A hospital coffee,” she said slowly. She met his gaze. “How could I refuse?”

The tone was wrong, and her expression didn’t change, but Kaidan grinned as though it was one of her best quips and ordered up coffee and food from his bedside panel. His mind raced, trying to find a safe topic of conversation that would delay her long enough to give her a moment’s peace. Thankfully Shepard was moving sluggishly, and it took her time to pull a chair to his bedside and take her seat. She ran her hand through her loose hair and drew some of it over her shoulder, her fingers idly twisting the strands into a braid. A nurse appeared with coffee and cake, and he didn’t seem too bothered when Kaidan told him to give it to Shepard.

As the nurse left, Shepard suddenly piped up, “I can’t have the same fight again, Kaidan,” she said, just a little waver in her voice.

“Then let’s have a new one,” he said, pushing the cake across the bedside table towards her. When she looked confused, he raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to catch up. “Your friend Thane has some very interesting ideas about ethics.”

Shepard lifted the coffee cup and stared into its depths as though she’d never seen the drink before. Her brow furrowed again, this time with puzzlement. “You’ve met Thane?” she asked, looking back up at him.

“He came in yesterday after you left, says he wants to look out for me.” He didn’t add how much the drell’s care had grated on him. Or how the drell had recited a memory of the first time he’d seen Shepard that had a ring of infatuation to it, and Kaidan should know what that sounded like.

“Oh.” She still seemed deeply puzzled by this.

He’d listened to Thane’s thoughts on Shepard yesterday, had recognised a man who was in love with something he’d never get. He’d wondered for a moment if she might have taken comfort in the arms of someone else, after all he’d given her a hell of a push, but the thought was outlandish. Shepard was nothing if not loyal, and Thane wasn’t talking as though he’d been watching Shepard with someone else. So Kaidan had kept talking to the guy, learned a little of the _Normandy SR-2’s_ suicide mission, and he said casually to Shepard, “So he thinks of himself as a weapon, right?”

This drew a tiny quirk from the corner of her mouth. She took a drink of coffee and met his gaze again. “I never quite grasped the whole concept, but I think that’s the gist of it.” She took another sip. “I mean . . .” it was like she was thawing slowly, “how does a culture evolve like that, if you believe your body is not really part of _you_.”

Kaidan had to work hard to keep the relief from his face. For a short half hour, he had her talking, speculating, and by the time cake was in crumbs and her coffee was drained there was a little more colour in her cheeks. “Come back and see me soon,” he volunteered as she headed for the door.

She saluted, sloppily, and walked out with a little more bounce in her step.

 

Touring the _Normandy_ SR-2 with Traynor felt longer ago than the two months that had passed. His kit bag was light. He’d brought precious little from Earth and Vega had already adopted all his weaponry, promising to take good care of it, so he stowed the bag in his locker and got to work. EDI advised the crew Shepard would be joining them soon and that departure was imminent, and like any good Alliance crew this meant people were making themselves busy. Kaidan took the opportunity to tour the ship again, making himself known to people, and trying to establish who the troublemakers and peacemakers were. By the time Shepard was on board and they were underway he’d managed to take the duty roster off EDI and figure out why Campbell was so insistent about staying on the swing shift.

“I optimised the duty rosters based on Shepard’s instructions,” EDI said a little plaintively when he finally sat down with her on the observation deck. Liara had apologised profusely for taking over the XO’s office, but he’d assured her he’d find somewhere else to work. Somewhere else just happened to have one hell of a view, and he’d never liked talking to someone over a desk anyway.

“They were very optimal,” he assured EDI, balancing his coffee on top of his datapad as he sat on the nearest soft surface. He resisted the urge to sigh in relief. “They just completely missed the fact Campbell’s a die-hard Bucks fan and on the swing shift she gets to work with Westmoreland who’s a Galaxy Rangers fan. They can argue about past games and debate the finer points of the offside rule. Without that, they gotta think about all _this_.”

EDI contemplated this in stoic silence before she spoke. “You extrapolated from personal data, and prioritised crew comfort over Alliance standard procedure,” she announced.

Kaidan took a swig of his coffee and discovered it was still scalding hot. “Yeah?” he managed, wincing.

EDI clasped her hands behind her back, holding herself at ease. His stomach flipped a little at the memory of those hands lifting him clean from Mars’ dirt. “Commander Shepard said the _Normandy_ had to do ‘whatever it takes’ to defeat the Reapers. My interpretation of that command was that the crew had to put aside personal comforts in order to reach optimum effectiveness.”

Kaidan wasn’t sure what to say to this.

“This interpretation was based on our previous work with Cerberus. Shepard stated then she would do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop the Collectors, and compromised many personal relationships to do so.”

Well there was the crux of it. “Ah.” He rubbed his jaw, wondering if this was calculated on EDI’s part, although he didn’t think she possessed that degree of subtlety.  

“You posit that efficiency will be optimised by acknowledging personal barriers and failings,” EDI announced. “This is an interesting supposition.”

“Well,” he blew on the surface of his coffee. “About three years ago it was Shepard who taught me that, so . . . take what you want from it.”

Again EDI went silent. It was as though she temporarily left her platform in stasis while she processed his meaning. Abruptly she returned, refocussed her gaze on him, and took a step closer. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he said, trying to tamp down on the instinctive reaction to throw up a barrier.

“If I perceive Shepard to be compromising her efficiency, should I notify you?”

“Uh . . .” The silvery platform was staring at him, waiting for a response. “I think you’ll have to rely on your best judgement for that, EDI.”

 

It was less than a week later, after they’d escorted a group of ex-Cerberus scientists off Arrae, when EDI started utilising her judgement. “Major?” her call came in through his inner ear piece, not the ship’s radio, and he glanced up from the galaxy map. Traynor was catching some sleep and no one dared disturb her rat’s nest of a work station. The rest of the crew were hard at work, further down the CIC. He was relatively alone at the map, and safe to respond without arousing curiosity.

“What is it, EDI?”

“I believe Commander Shepard requires your assistance. She is asleep at her desk.”

Even in the elevator he debated whether he was doing the right thing. The fact that EDI overrode the access codes to allow him into the attic did not do much to appease the twisting in his guts. He’d seen the room when he’d gotten his grand tour from Traynor, so many weeks ago, but Shepard hadn’t yet invited him into her space. Judging from the pair of boots tossed beneath the fish tank, it was now truly her space. He moved as quietly as he was able, rounding the corner to see the object of EDI’s concern.

There was a strange ache in his chest when he saw exactly what EDI had meant. Shepard had been sitting in her chair, cross legged and in her socks, her hoodie slung over the back of the chair and an empty bowl sitting at her elbow. She was leaning over the desk, her cheek pillowed by her forearm, looking for all the world as though she’d simply being hit by a tranq dart while working on her report.

“Shepard?” he said softly, approaching her desk and crouching down by her chair.

She woke with a start, bringing her right arm up swinging, wreathed in a biotic aura. He’d been anticipating it and he blocked with his own arm, absorbing the sheer power of her blow with only the smallest of pained grunts.

“Kaidan!” she gasped, and grabbed at his arm. He steadied her with a hand on her shoulder and smiled.

“It’s okay, I’m fine, you didn’t hurt me.” A little lie never hurt anyone.

After her rapid awakening, the control came back slowly. She put a hand to her forehead and screwed her eyes shut, her lips parting as she breathed slowly. Kaidan squeezed her shoulder in sympathy, and he would have been lying if he’d said he didn’t enjoy just being so close to her, watching her without anyone commenting on how long he looked. She muttered an oath and opened her eyes to look down at him, grimacing as a thought struck her, “How did you get in here? Did you knock?”

“Ah, no.” He rocked back on his heels. “Actually EDI let me in. She was worried about you.”

“Oh.” Shepard sat back in her chair and winced, reaching up to rub her neck. “EDI?”

“Yes, Commander,” the AI’s voice was smooth and unruffled, even though Kaidan was certain she had been watching.

“Grant Major Alenko access to the whole ship, please.” She was frowning slightly when she looked back at him. “I guess you are the ranking Alliance officer, after all?”

It was so good to be in the same room as her, to have his hand resting on the back of her chair, and to be close enough to smell the very particular scent of her hair, that he found himself studying her while she waited for his reply. “Uh, I don’t think anyone believes I outrank you,” he said when she raised an eyebrow to prompt him.

Slowly, she smiled. A proper smile that made his insides hum and seemed to shortcut the part of his brain that liked to come up with protocols and best practice. Instead, it was like a part of him roused from hibernation. This part of his mind suggested he lean in to kiss her, because she liked to be kissed and he could make her feel so very good, if only for a little while.

Before he could collect himself, she’d reached forward to clasp his cheek in her palm and leaned down to bruise her lips against his. Only the awkward twisting of their bodies kept it from becoming anything else. If she hadn’t been pinned between the chair and her desk, if he’d been able to put his hand on any part of her other than her shoulder . . .

He reached up to brush a little of her hair out the way and broke them apart. Her eyes were still slightly closed, bruised purple from lack of sleep.

Not like this.

“Shepard,” he murmured, rising to his feet to keep himself from making a mistake, “I don’t want to do anything until we’ve figured out what we are.”

“What we are?” She almost scoffed, the strange bitter streak he’d seen in her lately resurfacing as she climbed out of her chair and stretched her bad shoulder. He wondered if, with the Cerberus rebuild, that old wound even bothered her any more, or if it was just habit. She stared at the reports. “I don’t think there’s anything of me left to be part of something else,” she muttered, running her fingertips over a datapad that blinked with some of Arrae’s data.

“Oh, really?” He folded his arms and waited for her to blush at her own self-pity, which happened a little less quickly than he’d expected. “Shepard, I want whatever I can get from you.” He didn’t miss the little flick of her gaze up to his before she resumed sulkily staring at the floor. “But I’m not having that conversation until you’ve had a good night’s sleep and a decent meal in you, because I deserve that at least.”

“Maybe I don’t have time for that,” she murmured, still looking at anything but him. He took a step forward to break into her bubble, to force her to acknowledge him, and when she looked up at him he could feel his resolve waver.

“I’ll make the time,” he said, wondering why he had to force the words out, giving his voice a huskiness that she definitely noted. He cleared his throat and nodded his head in the direction of her bed.  “Now go to sleep . . . properly.”

She glanced through the glass to the sheets and then back to him, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth. Her gaze tracked the way his fell to her lips and she let it go, her tongue probing the bruised skin. “Maybe I’d sleep better with a quick fuck,” she said, low and ever so slightly punchy, like she was ready for a fight.

He tried very hard not to let it show how appealing that option might be to him. “Go to sleep,” he managed, steeling himself as her brows tightened with hurt, “And when we next catch a break, maybe we can talk about a long, slow fuck instead.”

That got her, darkening her eyes and reddening her cheeks. She stared up at him, breathing just a little heavily before she smirked. “Either get out, or make good on that look on your face, Major,” she purred, “because I am too tired to try to look out for your best interests tonight.”

With her confidence restored, he meant to leave, truly, but found his hand on her wrist instead, revelling in the contact of her skin.

She chuckled. “Major,” she prompted, placing her palm on his chest and giving him a gentle push backwards. “I want the dinner,” she said softly, “and I want the conversation. But I only have so much willpower so you really need to go, _now_.”

He backed to the door as she began untucking her shirt. “That’s just not fair,” he pointed.

The expression on her face was almost mischievous and nearly natural for her.

“Sleep well, Shepard.”

“You too,” she teased as the doors closed. As he got back into the elevator it felt as though he’d just met an old friend he hadn’t seen in many years.

 

The former Cerberus scientists had escaped in shuttles that were little more than tugboats. The _Normandy_ tailed them through successive relays like a concerned mother duck. The Alliance wanted their new prizes herded through the Citadel, which Kaidan was privately grateful for. If the stakes were any less high he might have been frustrated at returning to the Citadel so soon, but he couldn’t begrudge anyone a little breathing space when he knew all too well what it was like not to have heard from your family in months. He was collating intel reports in the War Room prior to their jump to the Widow nebule when Chakwas approached him, her face tight. “Everything okay with the scientists?” Kaidan asked. He had spotted Brynn visiting the medbay more than once on their trip, once with Jacob alongside her.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, all fine,” Chakwas shook her head. “I actually had something I wanted to ask Shepard but . . .”

Kaidan stepped away from his terminal and beckoned Chakwas to follow him out of the dark and crowded room to the relative privacy of the corridor and the conference suite. “Ask _me_ , Doc, I’ll try and take care of it,” he said.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Chakwas commissioned him to source out some supplies for the refugee camps and when she finished she reached up to fix the collar of her uniform, pulling at it with a preoccupied precision. Kaidan leaned against the meeting table and waited for her to decide if she wanted to say anything further, though he had a pretty good idea what was preying on her mind. “I’m not sure if I should say this, given doctor-patient confidentiality, but there’s a lot riding on the woman I’m trying to keep healthy . . .”

“It’s up to you, Doc, but I want to keep her healthy too.”

Chakwas nodded quickly, eager to share the burden, he thought. “She’s not sleeping well, and I’ve been trying a few different sedatives, but nothing much is working. I can’t tell if she’s taking them, or . . .”

He held up a hand to stall her, “I’ll try and find out,” he promised.

“Thank you, Kaidan.” Chakwas seemed to sag with relief before she headed off, leaving Kaidan alone at the table. He crossed his arms, thinking about all the people on this ship, and throughout the galaxy, who were placing so much faith in the legend of Commander Shepard. Was it any wonder she wasn’t sleeping?

His business in the refugee camp occupied most of the morning, but Shepard sent him a message to tell him she was delayed for lunch so he visited the Embassies afterwards to explore some Spectre reports. He still reached Apollo’s long before Shepard did, and his stomach was growling as he guarded their table from other patrons. When she did arrive, she was talking on her comm unit, two fingers pressed to her ear as she argued. She shot him an apologetic grimace as she reached the table, sitting beside him and folding her arms on the table. “I really don’t care what you think, General, and I assure you the Reapers care even less than I do. So why don’t you play nice and give me what I want?”

Kaidan ordered them a few beers and waited for her to finish, smiling as she let loose with a few choice epithets. “Mikhailovich?” he ventured when she finally finished her call.

Shepard rolled her eyes violently, sitting back in her chair. “How’d you guess?”

He thought about Chakwas’ sedatives and EDI’s efficiencies and dove straight in to the menu, highlighting their steak sandwiches. The value of protein and carbs played in the back of his mind while Shepard teased him about shard wine and then, in less space than a heartbeat, she was asking if _he_ was sleeping okay.

“It’s sometimes a little difficult to sleep,” he admitted, shifting a little closer, “Especially if I’m thinking about you.”

“Ha ha,” she said, and most unlike her, she glanced over her shoulder to see who might be listening in. She was saved by the waiter bringing them their meals and she grabbed her beer eagerly, popping the cap and taking a long slug. “Probably shouldn’t be drinking on duty,” she said, smacking her lips together as she finished.

“You’re always on duty these days, you might as well,” he offered. “But I think we were talking about my lack of sleep . . .”

Shepard’s nose wrinkled as she smirked, and she folded a truly impressive amount of steak into her mouth, giggling as he made eyes at her in response. “You’re always so attractive to me,” he drawled, and she nearly choked, needing another swig of her beer to help the food go down.

“This is so good,” she managed once she had swallowed it down.

“I know.” His own meal wasn’t bad either.

Shepard grunted something and then they fell into silence as they ate, Shepard stealing half his fries and even volunteering to try some of his steak too. He ordered a third portion while she ate while they demolished it between them. While the sandwiches couldn’t be said to be anything other than fuel, it was good to sit together in the relative peace and quiet. With all three plates wiped clean, and more beer ordered, Shepard was studying the menu again with renewed interest. “You ever tried these spicy asari chocolates? Samara was telling me about them.”

He admitted he hadn’t and continued looking his fill. A year’s living had undone the perfection of Cerberus’s work, given her skin pigmentation and marks again. Her hair had grown out a little, and today was tangled up in a loose bun. The last few months had taken their toll, but this afternoon, at least, she was smiling again, and was almost her old self. She glanced at him, and her smile grew sultry. “Well I’m going to have one,” she announced airily, and made her order on the interface. She composed herself, crossing her legs neatly and cradling her jaw in the palm of her hand, her elbows resting on the edge of the table. “You going to have anything?”

In actuality he’d ordered the apple pie before she’d made her choice, but it was much more fun to watch her try and wheedle the answer from him.

“I guess that brings me on to our next topic,” she said when finally convinced she’d have to wait and see what he was having for dessert. “Which is: am I appropriately fed and rested for your big Conversation?”

He grinned, a little lost in the eyes she was pinning him down with. “I guess that all depends, doesn’t it?”

“On?” her voice dropped, and she barely moved from her artful poise as the waiter arrived with their desserts. Her gaze dropped to the apple pie and cream he was served and she managed to convey a great deal of disdain for a woman currently sitting in a slightly dirty hoodie and BDUs on one of the Presidium’s finest establishments. “Apple pie? Oh, Kaidan, how positively Terran.”

“The heart wants what the heart wants,” he said, and tried not to feel too smug about the way she swallowed and concentrated very hard on her pudding. “I’m serious,” he added as she slid her spoon through the chocolate sponge. “You know that I love you, right? I always have.”

Her spoon rattled against her bowl as she set it down, and her seriousness returned. “Kaidan, I . . . I love you too.” She hesitated, unsure again. “I don’t know how long we might get but, I want as much as I can have.” And she dropped her gaze back to her dessert, grimacing. “I know that’s probably not in your rule book.”

He interrupted her by catching her hand, bringing it up to kiss the hollow of her palm. He almost hoped that someone would notice, would see his silent pledge. What he wouldn’t give for someone to see them, for Anderson or his parents or even Hackett to witness their admission. “It’s not in the rules,” he agreed, pressing another kiss on her wrist, “but it makes me pretty happy. And happiness has its own benefits.”

She clenched her hand when he released it and twirled her spoon in the chocolate sauce.

“More on that later,” Kaidan said, turning his attention to his own dessert, reasonably surprised to find that the ice cream hadn’t melted in the eternity he’d been inhaling the scent of her skin.

“Later, huh? That your idea of a sanity check?” She was licking her spoon clean quite deliberately. “Did I tell you Hackett gave me free roam of his apartment here?”

She said it so innocently that he nearly overlooked the significance of it. He gave her a long look. “Oh?” He wasn’t quite sure his voice didn’t break. “Where is it then?”

“On Silversun Strip I believe,” she said, finishing her dessert with one last thorough lick of her spoon. “I was thinking I should probably check it out.”

“Well.” He swiped his omnitool over the table’s pay point. “There’s no time like the present.”

“Don’t you want to finish your pie?”

He didn’t bother to dignify that with a response as he snatched her hand and pulled her close, hustling her towards the nearest skycar heedless of whoever saw. Shepard’s laugh, smothered in the crook of her elbow as she followed him, was tugging on that string she’d tied around him long ago. For a moment, he remembered her stepping out from the elevator, hand pulled back in half of a mnemonic, all sighted down the barrel of his gun. He squeezed her hand tighter and she leaned against him, saying nothing as they waited.

All the training in the world, all his experience, couldn’t have prepared him to pull that trigger. It was the way the dark energy dissipated around her, all of her control snapping when she met his gaze, that convinced him this wasn’t going to end in bloodshed. For all her violence and rage, she wasn’t going to hurt him.

Decorum was unnecessary in an automated skycar, and she nearly sat in his lap, her arms wrapped around his neck as they whispered sweet nothings between breathless kisses. Moving through the Silversun strip was another matter. This little corner of the citadel, packed with the wealthiest and most protected citizens, seemed untouched by the war. She kept a hold of his hand as they walked through the sparkling streets, and he was not willing to let go of hers either. Let the informed upper crust spot humanity’s two human Spectres walking hand in hand. Didn’t they know it was the end of the world?

She checked her omnitool for directions, told him Anderson had asked her to take the place off his hands, and her ID codes let them in to a cavernous space.

She dropped his hand and swore under her breath.

Anderson had not so much left an apartment as a palace. Without Shepard to anchor him, Kaidan drifted towards the kitchen, feeling lost in all the space. He heard Shepard’s fingers bounce artlessly over piano keys as he found himself in a bar that was bigger than the crew quarters in the _Normandy_ , he started counting bedrooms as Shepard suddenly cried out “Oh my god there is a hot tub,” she swore, and Kaidan jogged up the stairs to find her in the largest bedroom yet, running her fingertips over her mouth. “I’m going to have to let Traynor in here.”

His confusion must have shown because she smiled.

“Traynor loves a good bathroom, don’t ask how I know.”

“Why is it so clean? And why are the beds made?” Kaidan pushed his hand against the sheets at the corner of the bed.

“Anderson must hire a house cleaning service.” Shepard moved closer, looping her arms around his waist and tugging him off balance just a little, not quite enough to topple them onto the bed, but enough to make him rest his arms on her shoulders and spread his legs to hold them steady. Shepard was gazing up at him with her eyes narrowed in thought, her lips curling at the corners. “I missed you,” she murmured, stepping up against him, pressing her belly against his hips, her breasts against his chest.

“I missed you.” He guided her that one big step backwards, so her ankles were pressed against the bed and the slightest gust of wind would have her falling backwards if not for her arms still locked around his waist.

A dark gasp of laughter escaped her and she shook her head, breaking eye contact to push her forehead against his collarbone, and he bowed his head to kiss the crown of her hair, breathing in that smell, feeling the string around his guts be pulled ever tighter. His hands were almost shaking as he let them fall to rest on the curve of her rear, and she murmured, “Kaidan, what if . . . it doesn’t quite work like it used to?”

A question that had crossed his mind too. As she lifted her head to meet his gaze, he made sure he had a smile on his face. “Then we’ll find something else to pass the time with.” He dipped to kiss her, and her hands tightened against his side, one digging for the hem of his shirt. He pushed them backwards, making sure to catch himself and not let his weight fall on her, and she used the opportunity to get both hands on his shirt, peeling it over his head with practiced ease.

It was a blur of sensations, her calf hooking over his waist, her lips hot against his neck, the taste of the flash of skin between her breasts, the softness of her inner thigh cupped in his palm.

“It’s going pretty well so far,” he murmured into her belly and she tangled her fingers in his hair and laughed breathlessly.

“Could still all go horribly wrong.”

The feel of her, hot and strong around his forefinger, eclipsed the world around them. Just the ragged hiss of her breathing and the thread of her heartbeat, or his, through his fingertips. The tang of her on his tongue and the omnipresent ache behind his hips.

She murmured his name, her fingers fisting in his hair, thighs pressing against his shoulders, and he held fast to that rhythm like a lifeline, waiting for his name to be repeated, spilling out of her as she curved upwards into his touch, her fingernails scratching into his shoulders, tiny points of pain that he seemed to feel through static.

“Kaidan, please,” she whispered, palming his cheek, and he crawled towards her like a soul seeking salvation. She swallowed his groan with her kiss when he slid home inside of her, and held him to her as he thrusted, uneven and desperate. It barely took more than few strokes before all the coiled heat unbundled from beneath his belly and she was rubbing his shoulders as he fell atop her.

The sweat on his skin, and the sticky wetness between them, and the feel of her so solid and real beneath him, was a language he had forgotten. He rolled to his side, pulling her with him, and clung to her.

“Kaidan, I love you,” she said, her voice unsteady, “I’d do _anything_ for you.”

He opened his eyes to find her watching him, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. It was more like a pledge than whispered pillowtalk, and he splayed his palm between her shoulder blades, tangling his other in her hair. “Then stay alive, for me.”

She stared, he might as well have asked her for the moon, but she closed her eyes, settled against him, and nodded.

He had the best sleep he’d had in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go . . .


	12. Chaos Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Within the apparent randomness of a complex system, patterns, feedback loops, repetition and self-organisation will occur.   
> __________________________________________
> 
> Kaidan gives in to chaos.

“Kaidan?”

His eyelids felt glued shut, his limbs heavy like lead, and the ribs that were still knitting together begged him to stay lying down on the soft mattress. But he had to wake up, he had to answer Tali. Someone could be sick, they could have had news, encountered some colonists, he had to . . .

“Hey, Kaidan,” Tali said softly, and he felt her gloved hand on his shoulder. He peeled his eyes open to find her kneeling at the bedside, her head tilted to the side. In the darkness of the attic cabin her suit lights cast a strange glow inside her helmet, throwing her features into sharp relief. In the skylight above her, Eden Prime’s night sky was entirely obscured by clouds, although at least it had stopped raining. In the light of neon and gloom, Tali looked worried.

Kaidan scrubbed his hand over his face and eased himself upwards, blinking. “I’m up, what’s wrong?”

For a moment, Tali said nothing, until she rocked back on her heels and got to her feet. “Ken and Gabby have got power enough for some auxiliary systems. Sam wants to know if she should focus on long range scanners or the QEC. She says the QEC will be harder to power.”

Harder to power, less useful if there was nothing left of Earth, and most likely unable to answer the one question that thrummed through Kaidan’s soul, plucked on the string Shepard had tied round him, _was she alive_?

“When did Sam last sleep?” he asked, hauling himself from the bed and searching for his shirt, which Tali handed over.

“I’m not exactly sure,” Tali said, and she sounded a little worse for wear herself.

“Okay, well tell her she’s to stand down until she’s eaten a whole ration bar and caught a few REM cycles,” Kaidan said, finding his boots discarded near the sofa – he was picking up _her_ bad habits – and tugging them on as he searched for the MRE wrapper he’d thrown aside a few hours ago.

Tali remained by the bed, hands on hips. “Kaidan . . .” she began.

“I’m fine, Tali, please don’t worry about me.” He spotted the silvery wrapper beneath the tank and grabbed at it, his knuckles brushing over another discarded item of clothing. A single vest top, flung aside . . . days ago.

“Sure,” Tali said as he stilled. “I’m not worried.” She gave him a little push to the door. “Come on, there are more decisions that need to be made.”

Kaidan nodded, letting Tali precede him down the crawl shaft. He took one last look at the darkened cabin, almost wishing his mind would conjure the image of her curled in the bedclothes, but it remained stubbornly empty.

***

“And another thing, Kaidan?” Hackett was distracted, his holographic representation searching for something not captured by the recorders, giving him the appearance of fumbling blindly in mid-air.

“Yes, sir?”

“How’s our girl doing? Really.”

Kaidan glanced behind him to where the War Room was bustling with analysts and experts, the crew of the Normandy who worked on thin margins to give Shepard every edge. None of them paid him much attention at the QEC. He wished for a door, and tightened his fist on the rail. “About as good as can be expected, sir.” He forced his fingers to unclench and he reached for his coffee cup. It was empty. “Perhaps if you seemed to have absolutely any plan other than wait for her to solve the world’s problems, she might be getting a little more sleep, but . . .”

Hackett glowered and took a deep breath. Kaidan felt a flicker of guilt that was quickly dampened when he remembered Shepard waking this morning, her limbs flailing in the bed, a biotic aura lifting half the items in their cabin before she’d controlled herself, Kaidan murmuring hollow promises at her side. Hackett shook his head a little. “If I had a better plan I’d use it, Alenko, but right now she is that last hope we have. My job is to push her. Your job is to keep her together.”

Kaidan gritted his teeth.

“ _Her_ job is saving the galaxy,” Hackett finished softly.

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“Take care of her, and yourself. Hackett out.”

Kaidan lingered a moment at the QEC before gathering his empty mug and datapad and heading into the depths of the ship. The geth watched him with an unblinking head lamp and the quarian admiral studied him behind her faceplate. Kaidan tried to ignore them both. Strange times. He encountered Shepard in the CIC speaking with Traynor and Tali, her face pale with exhaustion. The double thump of his heart skipping a beat hurt his chest when he remembered losing contact with her, only hours ago on that damned Dreadnought.

“Hey,” she said as he approached. “Kaidan, the quarians have a problem.”

Tali took a step to the side, allowing him into their circle. “One of our ships, the _Rillatok_ , is having a lot of problems configuring its drive core. I thought it might help if I took Gabby with me, but the Captain of the _Rillatok_ is a bit of a bosh’tet.” 

“He likes things to be done officially, apparently,” Shepard said. “He doesn’t want a ‘rogue human’ running about his ship without proper supervision, someone ‘accountable’.”

“Would a Major be accountable enough?” Kaidan asked, and he spotted the wave of gratitude relaxing Shepard’s features.

“That it would,” Tali said.”

“Are you sure?” Shepard placed her hand on Tali’s arm. “You two must be exhausted.”

Traynor frowned at Shepard, as if she wanted to ask if the Commander wasn’t tired, and Kaidan shook his head just a little. “How hard can it be? I’ll just be watching Tali and Daniels try and force multiphasic shield processing on an outdated chip and then jump in at the end to point our fourier transforms will get the whole thing done faster and easier.”

Shepard blinked while Tali scoffed. “Oh that sounds right,” she drawled, “Remind me who got that omnitool of yours working on On’te?”

“Go tell Daniels to suit up,” he grinned as Tali shook her head at him and Traynor rolled her eyes at all of them, turning back to her terminal.

Shepard crossed her arms and leaned against the terminal counter, watching him. “You okay with this? I’m sure you’d rather have the extra sleep.”

“Hey.” He patted her on the shoulder. “I’m fine. I’ve had coffee and stims. I’m sure you’ve got enough to be getting on with talking to your, uh, geth . . . friend.”

“Legion,” she corrected him with a grin. “You’d better go get suited up yourself, and thank you,” she added, watching him head for the elevator.

“Any time,” he promised. If only he could do more.

 

***

 

“We’re not going to run out of food, but I can’t say the same for Sparks and Scars.” Vega was up and walking, which was impressive considering Garrus reported the soldier had taken a Brute to the face while defending the _Normandy_ as it evacced some of Hammer from London. The extra bodies on board preyed on Kaidan’s mind, a drain on their limited meds and resources. Still they were keeping Chakwas busy and off Kaidan’s back.

Vega was walking around with his arm in a sling and one eye that still didn’t seem to be focussing, but he was proving himself as versatile as ever, jumping easily into the XO role while Kaidan played trade-offs with what tech from the _Normandy_ had survived the crash . . . and that blast. “What are you thinking, Major?” Vega prompted, and Kaidan realised he’d been staring at their makeshift camp.

The _Normandy_ had landed hard, digging a furrow into the dirt and coming to rest disconcertingly close to a cliff’s edge. The _Normandy_ herself protected one flank, and the edge of the cliff another. They’d pulled bulkheads and cargo boxes out to wall off the others, but so far found their little corner of Eden Prime to be almost deserted. Kaidan had wondered if they’d got their calculations correct until Garrus had reported seeing one of the agri-towers several clicks away. Broken, like just about any sophisticated piece of hardware. Traynor had speculated that the Crucible had fired some kind of massive EM pulse that had disrupted anything based on Reaper code. It was just a pity that known civilisation had been cannibalising Reaper code for hundreds of years.

“I’m thinking we need to find the nearest colonist encampment and start sharing resources,” Kaidan said. The crew of the _Normandy_ milled around their camp, working, stripping circuit boards for parts, doing everything Adams, Daniels and Donnelly told them to do to get the _Normandy_ breathing again.  “Do you feel up for taking a long scouting mission with Garrus?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Pack up enough supplies and head in the direction of that agri-tower. Find me a friendly face, Vega.”

Vega’s grin was near feral as he left.

 

***

 

The _Rillatok_ and its obstinate Captain kept them busy for hours. Being on the run for generations must do that to a people. It would explain Javik too, come to think of it. Kaidan, Daniels and Tali finally caught a shuttle back to the Normandy and stumbled through the airlock. He shed his suit as the decontamination cycle finished, trying not to revel in the sensation with Tali standing beside him, and handed the kit to a waiting marine. Exhaustion nipped at his eyes, grit embedded beneath his eyelashes. By his chronometer it had been over twenty-four hours since they’d brought down the Dreadnought, and being confronted by the bright lights of the _Normandy’s_ day cycle was nearly migraine-inducing.

“Oh my god,” Gabby groaned, holding her helmet in her hands and staring blindly at the marine trying to help her out of the airlock.

Tali helped her with a hand on the small of her back and she glanced back at Kaidan. “Thank you,” she said.

“Any time,” he told her.

He showered quickly and dressed, but instead of heading to the crew quarters he returned to the elevator, as if by instinct, his body gravitating towards the very soft bed he’d started sleeping in more and more.

The lights of the attic were dimmed, and there were no sounds of reports being written or the hum of the light screens as Shepard pored over intel. Instead she was curled up in a ball on the edge of the bed, a lump beneath the sheets. Kaidan stripped as quickly as he could, stealing under the sheets and looping his arm over her waist, pulling her closer. She barely stirred. He hoped that meant Chakwas had finally found a cocktail that would keep the nightmares at bay. Or maybe it just meant it had been almost thirty-eight hours since they’d risen from this bed. He was sleeping the moment his head hit the pillow.

 

***

 

The _Normandy’s_ drive re-engaged with a hum and a cheer went up round the CIC, grease and oil-stained humans slapping each others’ backs, embracing, some punching the air and others just looking relieved.

Kaidan looked over to Tali, hunched over open deck panels, power conduits buzzing beneath her, and nodded. “Good work,” he said.

Tali pushed her finger against the side of her helmet. “Traynor? Any luck?”

“Yes!” Traynor’s voice bubbled over the radio. “The QEC system has engaged!”

Tali rocked back on her heels and her shoulder slumped for the briefest of moments before she lifted her head to look at Kaidan. “Keelah se’lai,” she muttered under her breath, and then, “Go. You should be there to talk to . . . whoever’s on the other side.”

He nodded, squeezing her shoulder as he passed. Despite torn up deck plates, crew still bearing the bruises from their crash landing, and the conspicuous lack of her beating heart, the activity on the Normandy felt more normal than it had for days. People had hope again. Or maybe it was _more_ hope, real hope. The seed growing that maybe, just maybe, they’d done it . . .

Crew acknowledged him with a nod or the odd salute as he passed. They had happily accepted him as their Captain, in the quarian way, and no one seemed to dare to mention her name around him. Even the thought of it filled his chest with ice. He found Traynor wedged half under a deck panel beneath the QEC, swearing to herself as the display’s holo-ring flickered. “What can I do?” he asked, tapping out his ID codes on the terminal.

Without warning the lights flickered and a burst of static sounded over the speakers, followed by a buzz of feedback.

“Uh!” Traynor popped up at Kaidan’s elbow, her shoulder bumping against his hip as she reached over to adjust the signal. “Oh damn! Give us your ID codes again.”

Kaidan did as he was told, his fingers itching to take over, though Traynor undoubtedly knew the system far better. He stood back, crossing his arms to keep himself from interfering, and he willed something to make it through. It occurred to him that he’d seen Shepard do this very thing, cross her arms and stand back, letting her team do the work, and he wondered if it had been borne of similar frustration.

“There!” Traynor shouted, at the same time a young Alliance officer appeared in the field, looking off to the side. His gaze snapped to Kaidan’s and an expression of relief washed over him.

“Sir! Fran has gone to fetch Admiral Hackett, we weren’t expecting . . . Sir, _where are you_?” the young man sputtered, correcting himself, and then wincing as he heard his own words.

“Slow down, you’re doing fine,” Kaidan said, and then with an almighty pop, a series of sparks, and the distinct smell of ionised air, the QEC lost power and they were plunged into darkness.

 

***

 

She hooked her leg over his hips, bringing the softness of her thigh against his cock and he opened his eyes, confronted by the stars haloing Shepard’s face as she leaned over him. “Hey,” he said, sliding his hands to the small of her back.

“Hey yourself,” she said, her fingers dancing over his chest, and a playful twist to her lips.

How long had he slept? It wasn’t a question that pressed on his mind as he let his eyes close again, curving one hand over the rise of her ass and pressing her other against her back to keep her close. She made a pleased sound, the hot, wet heat of her lips tracing up his shoulder. She nipped at his ear and then settled her cheek on his shoulder, her hand still playing idly over his chest, her thumb rubbing at a nipple. In the fog between sleep and waking, they both seemed quite content to explore their skins. Her stomach was hot and soft against his side, the heat fading the further from her core she got, the fingers that traced through the hair on his chest were almost chilled. He slid his hand up the groove of her spine and then on to her arm, catching her fingers and pulling them up to his lips for a kiss, trying to breathe some warmth into them. She hummed under her breath, her hips rocking forwards just a little, and that part of her was certainly hot.

Shepard tangled her free hand in the hair at the back of his head, and it felt right, grounding, to have her weave herself into him again. He relinquished her hand to curve his palm behind her thigh, hoisting her leg up higher over his belly, and turning his head to kiss her. She responded eagerly, parting her lips and seeking his kiss with all her warmth and fire. His hand slipped between her legs, and then pulled her atop him, where she braced herself with her forearms on his shoulders, and without pulling her lips away began rolling her hips. Kaidan was content to lie back and lose himself in her, whenever he opened his eyes she was garnished in the stars above their bed.

 

Undone and relaxed, they lay together until the sheets around them grew cool and clammy. She cupped his cheek and kissed him before hopping from the bed, stretching languidly while he appreciated the view. “When I left him last night, Legion was hunting for the location of a server guiding some geth squadrons.” She paused on the stairs, looking back at him, “Hopefully he’s found it by now. Do you want to join me in the shower?”

“No, I’m happy here,” he said, and she chuckled, obligingly leaving the door open as she started the shower up. She started to sing, something that was vaguely familiar, a pop song he thought, something he hadn’t heard for nearly half a year.

When she’d come up from the deep in the cracked ATLAS, he’d thought for a moment she was lost to them. Now she was singing in her shower. If she did . . . die . . . he wanted to remember every part of her right now. Abruptly he sat up, calling up his omnitool and beginning to write, trying and failing to describe the sound of her coming, the taste of her lips and the feel of her weight on his chest. If she left him behind again, he wanted to have something . . .

His efforts were interrupted by a bundled, damp towel landing on his face. “You’re planning on staying in bed all day?” Shepard teased, searching for a pair of underwear in her pigsty.

“I might as well.” He slapped at her bare ass as he passed, and she squealed as though she had no greater concerns in the world. He wasn’t sure if this was what Hackett had had in mind, but it was one of the few weapons in his arsenal.

 

***

For the fifth evening in a row they sat beneath the stars, a fire giving light, warmth, and a primal sense of safety. Kaidan sat a little apart from the others, eating his rations with a mechanical determination. He noted yet again that Javik and Liara were sitting down to eat together, also a little apart from the rest of the crew. He was fairly certain they’d had a little victory celebration of their own on the first evening and watching Liara test the boundaries of the prickly prothean gave him more pleasure than he would have thought. Tonight, she was letting her knee brush his, and Kaidan felt certain she wanted to reach out and take some food from his plate, judging from her fist clenched against her thigh.

They weren’t the only couple. Any burgeoning relationship on the Normandy had blossomed on their unwelcome sojourn. Daniels and Donnelly were sitting beside one another, Donnelly with his head resting on Daniels’ shoulder. Reynes and Smith were partnered up, although that one he thought was a partnership of convenience.

Joker was also sitting alone. The object of his affection was tucked into the AI core, as dead as her silvery platform. Kaidan couldn’t bring himself to look too long at the pilot, his hunched shoulders and hands grasping at his mug while he stared unseeing into the flames. He knew all too well what that felt like. And he remembered hating Joker so fiercely it was nearly blinding. It had never quite faded, and every time Shepard had smiled at the cheerful pilot, it had stirred inside him.

Tali’s approach was a welcome distraction. She sat on the ground beside him, leaning her back against the log he was perched on, and stretched her legs out in front of her.

“Garrus will be back soon,” he said, and she glanced up at him. In this light her mask was practically opaque, and her expression was difficult to read. “I’m sorry I sent him out scouting without you.”

Tali shook her head and turned her attention back to the fire. She crossed her arms and hugged herself. “It’s okay . . . it’s been good to have my thoughts to myself.”

“Huh, really?” Kaidan flattened the wrapper of his empty ration and tucked it into a pocket.

“Yeah. If we’re right about that beam . . . well, the geth are no more. And Rannoch is a long, long way away. I don’t know what I do next.”

“And you don’t know where Garrus fits into that?”

“Hmm.” She shuffled so her shoulder was braced against his knee. “He’s like this . . . pull. Like gravity. Like _Rannoch_. He’s something that’s always there in the dark times, when I’m frightened, when there’s all that excitement. I don’t know if I’ll know him in peace. He’s more like an idea than a man.”

Kaidan tried not to smile, instead he gave her shoulder a little nudge with his knee and nodded towards Liara and Javik. “Liara seems to be getting to know Javik pretty well, don’t you think?” he asked casually.

Tali chuckled. “Oh yes. James and I found them our first morning out, did I tell you?”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yup. Prothean physiology is verrrry interesting.”

He could feel himself grinning and he was sure Tali was too. He leaned forward a little. “I’m sure if they can work it out, you can too. If you want to, of course.”

“Thank you,” Tali murmured.

As the sun set and the stars began to emerge, the moons beginning their dance, and the sentry called out a friendly approach. Kaidan studied his quarian friend carefully as Garrus and Vega returned, and judging from the way she bounced on her toes, she was delighted to see her own little idea of gravity walk into their camp. They reported finding a settlement a day’s hike south, one of Eden Prime’s more remote outposts. The colonists had provided them with every levo-supply they could scrounge, and news from Eden Prime’s central QEC that the Citadel had been destroyed, with all aboard presumed lost.

The evening’s breeze was deafening as it rustled over the silent camp.

“We should have a memorial,” Liara was first to speak.

Garrus was holding on to Tali, Daniels sobbing softly in Donnelly’s arms. Kaidan could feel the eyes of a dozen people on him, and he wondered if his face had the same impassivity Shepard’s used to.

“Yes,” he said. “We should remember those who have given their lives to protect us, and defeat the Reapers. But tonight, let’s eat, and be with those who are still with us.”

 

***

 

As the cabin doors closed behind them Shepard turned to him, colliding with his embrace as he pushed her against the wall. They moved so fast he bruised his knuckles against the bulkhead, Shepard cried out as some bruised part of her was handled too roughly, and he apologised into the crook of her neck while she dismissed his words with a grunt. She braced herself against the wall long enough to wrap her legs around his waist, flinging her head back as he worked his fingers beneath her belt and tugged hard at the fly.

“I did it,” she gasped as he worked. “I fucking did it.”

The memory of her standing in front of a Reaper, Rannoch’s sunset setting her barrier on fire, still blazed in his mind’s eye. “You did it, baby.” Through a feat of athleticism he couldn’t repeat if he tried, he managed to haul her pants down to her knees and she dropped back down to balance on one foot long enough to wriggle out of them before joining him again like the separation was painful.

“I killed a Reaper,” she gasped as he thrust inside her, her voice ragged, “I made peace with the geth, I brought the quarians to Rannoch.”

He could only agree with her litany, clinging to her as she built her mantra and then collapsing with her to the deck, half clothed and barely half sane. They lay on their backs, staring up at the bulkhead above them, and after her breathing steadied, Shepard said, “I guess I had a little help.” She chuckled at herself, patted his chest, and climbed to her feet. She stood over him, wearing only her shirt and with her hair entirely in disarray, the Slayer of Reapers, the Saviour of the Citadel, the Hero of the Elysium, a truly filthy grin spreading over her poster girl face. “Did anyone ever tell you, you look damned good on my floor?”

“Uh . . .” he had to confess they hadn’t.

She winked at him, and stooped to pick up her pants. “Well when this is all over I’m going to leave you on my floor more often.”

As she headed deeper into the cabin, her victory and her climax giving her hips a sway as she walked, Kaidan wondered if she knew it was the first time she’d ever mentioned an ‘after’. He got to his feet and chased her into the shower. ‘After’ was more than he’d dared hope for.

 

***

 

They gave him a plaque with her name etched in white. He listened to their words about Anderson, about EDI, and when they looked at him he felt his fingers tighten on the metal, the cool edges biting his skin.

Behind him he could hear sniffs, people fighting their emotions, keeping back their tears. Over the past week he had seen, more than once, somebody crack and their friends pull them together with soft words, hands on shoulders, embraces where they were needed. Today would be hard for all of them.

Tali stepped up beside him, placing her hand on his arm.

Sleep hadn’t been coming so easily as the work grew less frenetic, so he had been writing his memories of Shepard. They had come in fractured lumps, and this morning he’d been reminded of a day he couldn’t pinpoint, where she’d been sitting in the mess beside Tali and EDI, laughing about some terrible dating advice in a magazine several months old. The way she and Tali had enjoyed teasing EDI, while Liara desperately tried to keep the conversation on track, had felt so normal it was like there was no war on at all.

“Kaidan,” Tali murmured.

Maybe someone would write about this. The moment when Major Alenko was unable to say goodbye, when he clung to a conviction that she had promised him she would live, and the war had broken him so much he’d believed her. Again.

“I said goodbye once.” The steadiness of his voice surprised himself, and he turned to face the others, their confusion, their sympathy. “I won’t do it again until I’m sure.”

Deep inside, in the rubble of his heart, he felt the tug of that string. The whisper of sheer unbridled chaos. She had promised him she would live, and so it was one of the galaxy’s laws. He could no sooner make sense of it than he could count the stars.

They would, in the hours to come, provide a steady power supply to the QEC. Hackett would weep as he told Kaidan she was alive, badly hurt, but alive. In the weeks to come they would make the _Normandy_ spaceworthy, and rendezvous with the _Agincourt_. In the months between Eden Prime and Sol he continued to write, because one day, maybe in the years after he was dead, people would want to know. He wrote about the day Liara told him she was pregnant, and tried to capture the shy twist of her hands together, the smile when she promised him she had no plans to name her daughter ‘Shepard’.

And in the years to come he catalogued the legends that coalesced around Councillor Shepard, and if he got no closer to understanding them, he enjoyed the chaos.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE THE MILKY WAY YOU CAN'T MAKE ME.


End file.
